•NRLF 


EX    LIBRIS 

THE    UNIVERSITY 

OF    CALIFORNIA 


FROM  THE  FUND 
ESTABLISHED  AT  YALE 

IN  1927  BY 
WILLIAM  H.  CROCKER 

OF  THE  CLASS  OF  1882 

SHEFFIELD  SCIENTIFIC  SCHOOL 

YALE  UNIVERSITY 


THERE'S   PIPPINS  AND   CHEESE 
TO   COME 


Other  Books  by  the  Same  Author 

"Journeys  to  Bagdad" 
Fourth  printing. 

"Chimney-Pot  Papers" 
Second  printing. 

"Hints  to  Pilgrims" 


THERE'S  PIPPINS 

AND 

CHEESETDCDME 

BY 
CHARLES  5.  BROOKS 

Illustrated  bj 
Theodore  Diedricfcsen  Jr. 


NWHWEMmEUMVEBSITY  PRESS 

LOM)ON=HUMPHREYMILFOED 

OXFORD  IMVEKSITYPRESS 

MDCCCCXXIV 


PYRIGHT,  1917,  BY 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


First  published,  1917 
Second  printing,  1918 

Third  printing,  1920 
Fourth  printing,  1924 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 

Tiu>  Yal3  University  Press  makes  grateful  acknowledgment  to  the 
Editors  of  The  Yale  Review  and  of  The  New  Republic  for  permission  to 
UK-hide  in  the  present. work  essays  of  which  they  were  the  original 
publisher  . 


TO  MY  FATHEK  AND  MOTHER 


646517 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.     There's  Pippins  and  Cheese  to  Come  .  1 

II.     On  Buying  Old  Books 15 

III.  Any  Stick  Will  Do  to  Beat  a  Dog      .  28 

IV.  Roads  of  Morning 40 

V.     The  Man  of  Grub  Street  Comes  from 

His  Garret 58 

VI.     Now  that  Spring  is  Here      ....  68 

VII.     The  Friendly  Genii 75 

VIII.     Mr.  Pepys  Sits  in  the  Pit      ....  83 

IX.     To  an  Unknown  Reader 93 

X.     A  Plague  of  All  Cowards       ....  101 
XI.     The   Asperities   of  the   Early   British 

Reviewers 110 

XII.     The  Pursuit  of  Fire  127 


THERE'S  PIPPINS   AND   CHEESE 
TO  COME 


f*X^W*        %P^P^*»J 

Cheese  To 


N  MY  noonday  quest  for  food,  if 
the  day  is  fine,  it  is  my  habit  to  shun 
the  nearer  places  of  refreshment. 
I  take  the  air  and  stretch  myself. 
Like  Eve's  serpent  I  go  upright  for 
a  bit.  Yet  if  time  presses,  there 
may  be  had  next  door  a  not  un 
savory  stowage.  A  drinking  bar  is 
nearest  to  the  street  where  its  pol 
ished  brasses  catch  the  eye.  It  holds 
a  gilded  mirror  to  such  red-faced 
nature  as  consorts  within.  Yet  you 
pass  the  bar  and  come  upon  a  range 
of  tables  at  the  rear. 

Now,  if  you  yield  to  the  habits  of  the  place  you 
order  a  rump  of  meat.  Gravy  lies  about  it  like  a  moat 
around  a  castle,  and  if  there  is  in  you  the  zest  for 
encounter,  you  attack  it  above  these  murky  waters. 
"This  castle  hath  a  pleasant  seat,"  you  cry,  and  charge 
upon  it  with  pike  advanced.  But  if  your  appetite  is 
one  to  peck  and  mince,  the  whiffs  that  breathe  upon 
the  place  come  unwelcome  to  your  nostrils.  In  no 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


wise  are  they  like  the  sweet  South  upon  your  senses. 
There  is  even  a  suspicion  in  you — such  is  your  dis 
temper-^ that  it  is  too  much  a  witch's  cauldron  in  the 
kitchen,  "eye  of  newt,  and  toe  of  frog,"  and  you  spy 
and  poke  upon  your  food.  Bus  boys  bear  off  the 
crockery  as  though  they  were  apprenticed  to  a 
juggler  and  were  only  at  the  beginning  of  their  art. 
Waiters  bawl  strange  messages  to  the  cook.  It's  a 
tongue  unguessed  by  learning,  yet  sharp  and  potent. 
Also,  there  comes  a  riot  from  the  kitchen,  and  steam 
issues  from  the  door  as  though  the  devil  himself  were 
a  partner  and  conducted  here  an  upper  branch. 
Like  the  man  in  the  old  comedy,  your  belly  may  still 
ring  dinner,  but  the  tinkle  is  faint.  Such  being  your 
state,  you  choose  a  daintier  place  to  eat. 

Having  now  set  upon  a  longer  journey — the  day 
being  fine  and  the  sidewalks  thronged — you  pass  by  a 
restaurant  that  is  but  a  few  doors  up  the  street.  A 
fellow  in  a  white  coat  flops  pancakes  in  the  window. 
But  even  though  the  pancake  does  a  double  somer 
sault  and  there  are  twenty  curious  noses  pressed 
against  the  glass,  still  you  keep  your  course  uptown. 

Nor  are  you  led  off  because  a  near-by  stairway 
beckons  you  to  a  Chinese  restaurant  up  above.  A 
golden  dragon  swings  over  the  door.  Its  race  has 
fallen  since  its  fire-breathing  grandsire  guarded  the 
fruits  of  the  Hesperides.  Are  not  "soys"  and  "chou 
meins"  and  other  such  treasures  of  the  East  laid  out 
above?  And  yet  the  dragon  dozes  at  its  post  like  a 
sleepy  dog.  No  flame  leaps  up  its  gullet.  The  swish 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


of  its  tail  is  stilled.  If  it  wag  at  all,  it's  but  in  friend 
ship  or  because  a  gust  of  wind  has  stirred  it  from 
its  dreams. 

I  have  wondered  why  Chinese  restaurants  are 
generally  on  the  second  story.  A  casual  inquiry 
attests  it.  I  know  of  one,  it  is  true,  on  the  ground 
level,  yet  here  I  suspect  a  special  economy.  The 
place  had  formerly  been  a  German  restaurant,  with 
Teuton  scrolls,  "Ich  Dien,"  and  heraldries  on  its 
walls.  A  frugal  brush  changed  the  decoration. 
From  the  heart  of  a  Prussian  blazonry,  there  flares 
on  you  in  Chinese  yellow  a  recommendation  to  try 
"Our  Chicken  Chop  Soy."  The  quartering  of  the 
House  of  Hohenzollern  wears  a  baldric  in  praise  of 
"Subgum  Noodle  Warmein,"  which  it  seems  they 
cook  to  an  unusual  delicacy.  Even  a  wall  painting 
of  Rip  Van  Winkle  bowling  at  tenpins  in  the 
mountains  is  now  set  off  with  a  pigtail.  But  the 
chairs  were  Dutch  and  remain  as  such.  Generally, 
however,  Chinese  restaurants  are  on  the  second  story. 
Probably  there  is  a  ritual  from  the  ancient  days  of 
Ming  Ti  that  Chinamen  when  they  eat  shall  sit  as 
near  as  possible  to  the  sacred  moon. 

But  hold  a  bit!  In  your  haste  up  town  to  find  a 
place  to  eat,  you  are  missing  some  of  the  finer  sights 
upon  the  way.  In  these  windows  that  you  pass,  the 
merchants  have  set  their  choicest  wares.  If  there  is 
any  commodity  of  softer  gloss  than  common,  or  one 
shinier  to  the  eye — so  that  your  poverty  frets  you — 
it  is  displayed  here.  In  the  window  of  the  haber- 


4,  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

dasher,  shirts — mere  torsos  with  not  a  leg  below  or 
head  above — yet  disport  themselves  in  gay  neck 
wear.  Despite  their  dismemberment  they  are  tricked 
to  the  latest  turn  of  fashion.  Can  vanity  survive 
such  general  amputation?  Then  there  is  hope  for 
immortality. 

But  by  what  sad  chance  have  these  blithe  fellows 
been  disjointed?  If  a  gloomy  mood  prevails  in  you— 
as  might  come  from  a  bad  turn  of  the  market — 
you  fancy  that  the  evil  daughter  of  Herodias  still 
lives  around  the  corner,  and  that  she  has  set  out  her 
victims  to  the  general  view.  If  there  comes  a  hurdy- 
gurdy  on  the  street  and  you  cock  your  ear  to  the  tune 
of  it,  you  may  still  hear  the  dancing  measure  of  her 
wicked  feet.  Or  it  is  possible  that  these  are  the 
kindred  of  Holofernes  and  that  they  have  supped 
guiltily  in  their  tents  with  a  sisterhood  of  Judiths. 

Or  we  may  conceive — our  thoughts  running  now 
to  food — that  these  gamesome  creatures  of  the  haber 
dasher  had  dressed  themselves  for  a  more  recent 
banquet.  Their  black-tailed  coats  and  glossy  shirts 
attest  a  rare  occasion.  It  was  in  holiday  mood,  when 
they  were  fresh-combed  and  perked  in  their  best,  that 
they  were  cut  off  from  life.  It  would  appear  that 
Jack  Ketch  the  headsman  got  them  when  they  were 
rubbed  and  shining  for  the  feast.  We'll  not  squint 
upon  his  writ.  It  is  enough  that  they  were  appre 
hended  for  some  rascality.  When  he  came  thumping 
on  his  dreadful  summons,  here  they  were  already  set, 
fopped  from  shoes  to  head  in  the  newest  whim. 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


Spoon  in  hand  and  bib  across  their  knees — lest 
they  fleck  their  careful  fronts — they  waited  for 
the  anchovy  to  come.  And  on  a  sudden  they  were  cut 
off  from  life,  unfit,  unseasoned  for  the  passage.  Like 
the  elder  Hamlet's  brother,  they  were  engaged  upon 
an  act  that  had  no  relish  of  salvation  in  it.  You  may 
remember  the  lamentable  child  somewhere  in  Dickens, 
who  because  of  an  abrupt  and  distressing  accident, 
had  a  sandwich  in  its  hand  but  no  mouth  to  put  it  in. 
Or  perhaps  you  recall  the  cook  of  the  Nancy  Bell 
and  his  grievous  end.  The  poor  fellow  was  stewed 
in  his  own  stew-pot.  It  was  the  Elderly  Naval  Man, 
you  recall — the  two  of  them  being  the  ship's  sole 
survivors  on  the  deserted  island,  and  both  of  them 
lean  with  hunger — it  was  the  Elderly  Naval  Man 
(the  villain  of  the  piece)  who  "ups  with  his  heels,  and 
smothers  his  squeals  in  the  scum  of  the  boiling  broth." 

And  yet  by  looking  on  these  torsos  of  the  haber 
dasher,  one  is  not  brought  to  thoughts  of  sad  mor 
tality.  Their  joy  is  so  exultant.  And  all  the  things 
that  they  hold  dear — canes,  gloves,  silk  hats,  and  the 
newer  garments  on  which  fashion  makes  its  twaddle- 
are  within  reach  of  their  armless  sleeves.  Had  they 
fingers  they  would  be  smoothing  themselves  before 
the  glass.  Their  unbodied  heads,  wherever  they  may 
be,  are  still  smiling  on  the  world,  despite  their 
divorcement.  Their  tongues  are  still  ready  with  a 
jest,  their  lips  still  parted  for  the  anchovy  to  come. 

A  few  days  since,  as  I  was  thinking — for  so  I  am 
pleased  to  call  my  muddy  stirrings — what  manner  of 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


essay  I  might  write  and  how  best  to  sort  and  lay  out 
the  rummage,  it  happened  pat  to  my  needs  that  I 
received  from  a  friend  a  book  entitled  "The  Closet 
of  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  Knight  Opened."  Now, 
before  it  came  I  had  got  so  far  as  to  select  a  title. 
Indeed,  I  had  written  the  title  on  seven  different 
sheets  of  paper,  each  time  in  the  hope  that  by  the 
run  of  the  words  I  might  leap  upon  some  further 
thought.  Seven  times  I  failed  and  in  the  end  the 
sheets  went  into  the  waste  basket,  possibly  to  the 
confusion  of  Annie  our  cook,  who  may  have  mistaken 
them  for  a  reiterated  admonishment  towards  the 
governance  of  her  kitchen — at  the  least,  a  hint  of  my 
desires  and  appetite  for  cheese  and  pippins. 

"The  Closet  of  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  Opened"  is  a 
cook  book.  It  is  due  you  to  know  this  at  once,  other 
wise  your  thoughts — if  your  nature  be  vagrant- 
would  drift  towards  family  skeletons.  Or  maybe  the 
domestic  traits  prevail  and  you  would  think  of  dress- 
clothes  hanging  in  camphorated  bags  and  a  row  of 
winter  boots  upon  a  shelf. 

I  am  disqualified  to  pass  upon  the  merits  of  a  cook 
book,  for  the  reason  that  I  have  little  discrimination 
in  food.  It  is  not  that  I  am  totally  indifferent  to 
what  lies  on  the  platter.  Indeed,  I  have  more  than 
a  tribal  aversion  to  pork  in  general,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  quicken  joyfully  when  noodles  are  inter 
spersed  with  bacon.  I  have  a  tooth  for  sweets,  too, 
although  I  hold  it  unmanly  and  deny  it  as  I  can,  I 
am  told  also — although  I  resent  it — that  my  eye 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


lights  up  on  the  appearance  of  a  tray  of  French 
pastry.  I  admit  gladly,  however,  my  love  of  onions, 
whether  they  come  hissing  from  the  skillet,  or  lie  in 
their  first  tender  whiteness.  They  are  at  their  best 
when  they  are  placed  on  bread  and  are  eaten  largely 
at  midnight  after  society  has  done  its  worst. 

A  fine  dinner  is  lost  within  me.  A  quail  is  but  an 
inferior  chicken — a  poor  relation  outside  the  exclu 
sive  hennery.  Terrapin  sits  low  in  my  regard,  even 
though  it  has  wallowed  in  the  most  aristocratic  marsh. 
Through  such  dinners  I  hack  and  saw  my  way 
without  even  gaining  a  memory  of  my  progress.  If 
asked  the  courses,  I  balk  after  the  recital  of  the  soup. 
Indeed,  I  am  so  forgetful  of  food,  even  when  I  dine 
at  home,  that  I  can  well  believe  that  Adam  when  he 
was  questioned  about  the  apple  was  in  real  confusion. 
He  had  or  he  had  not.  It  was  mixed  with  the  pome 
granate  or  the  quince  that  Eve  had  sliced  and  cooked 
on  the  day  before. 

A  dinner  at  its  best  is  brought  to  a  single  focus. 
There  is  one  dish  to  dominate  the  cloth,  a  single  bulk 
to  which  all  other  dishes  are  subordinate.  If  there  be 
turkey,  it  should  mount  from  a  central  platter.  Its 
protruding  legs  out-top  the  candles.  All  other  foods 
are,  as  it  were,  privates  in  Caesar's  army.  They  do 
no  more  than  flank  the  pageant.  Nor  may  the  pantry 
hold  too  many  secrets.  Within  reason,  everything 
should  be  set  out  at  once,  or  at  least  a  gossip  of  its 
coming  should  run  before.  Otherwise,  if  the  stew  is 
savory,  how  shall  one  reserve  a  corner  for  the  custard? 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


One  must  partition  himself  justly — else,  by  an  over- 
stowage  at  the  end,  he  list  and  sink. 

I  am  partial  to  picnics — the  spreading  of  the  cloth 
in  the  woods  or  beside  a  stream — although  I  am  not 
avid  for  sandwiches  unless  hunger  press  me.  Rather, 
let  there  be  a  skillet  in  the  company  and  let  a  fire  be 
started!  Nor  need  a  picnic  consume  the  day.  In 
summer  it  requires  but  the  late  afternoon,  with  such 
borrowing  of  the  night  as  is  necessary  for  the  journey 
home.  You  leave  the  street  car,  clanking  with  your 
bundles  like  an  itinerant  tinman.  You  follow  a 
stream,  which  on  these  lower  stretches,  it  is  sad  to 
say,  is  already  infected  with  the  vices  of  the  city. 
Like  many  a  countryman  who  has  come  to  town,  it 
has  fallen  to  dissipation.  It  shows  the  marks  of  the 
bottle.  Further  up,  its  course  is  cleaner.  You  cross 
it  in  the  mud.  Was  it  not  Christian  who  fell  into  the 
bog  because  of  the  burden  on  his  back?  Then  you 
climb  a  villainously  long  hill  and  pop  out  upon  an 
open  platform  above  the  city. 

The  height  commands  a  prospect  to  the  west. 
Below  is  the  smoke  of  a  thousand  suppers.  Up  from 
the  city  there  comes  the  hum  of  life,  now  somewhat 
fallen  with  the  traffic  of  the  day — as  though  Nature 
already  practiced  the  tune  for  sending  her  creatures 
off  to  sleep.  You  light  a  fire.  The  baskets  disgorge 
their  secrets.  Ants  and  other  leviathans  think  evi 
dently  that  a  circus  has  come  or  that  bears  are  in  the 
town.  The  chops  and  bacon  achieve  their  appointed 
destiny.  You  throw  the  last  bone  across  your 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


shoulder.    It  slips  and  rattles  to  the  river.    The  sun 
sets.    Night  like  an  ancient  dame  puts  on  her  jewels: 

And  now  that  I  have  climbed  and  won  this  height, 
I  must  tread  downward  through  the  sloping  shade 
And  travel  the  bewildered  tracks  till  night. 
Yet  for  this  hour  I  still  may  here  be  stayed 
And  see  the  gold  air  and  the  silver  fade 
And  the  last  bird  fly  into  the  last  light. 

By  these  confessions  you  will  see  how  unfit  I  am 
to  comment  on  the  old  cook  book  of  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby.  Yet  it  lies  before  me.  It  may  have  escaped 
your  memory  in  the  din  of  other  things,  that  in  the 
time  when  Oliver  Cromwell  still  walked  the  earth, 
there  lived  in  England  a  man  by  the  name  of  Kenelm 
Digby,  who  was  renowned  in  astrology  and  alchemy, 
piracy,  wit,  philosophy  and  fashion.  It  appears  that 
wherever  learning  wagged  its  bulbous  head,  Sir 
Kenelm  was  of  the  company.  It  appears,  also,  that 
wherever  the  mahogany  did  most  groan,  wherever 
the  possets  were  spiced  most  delicately  to  the  nose, 
there  too  did  Sir  Kenelm  bib  and  tuck  himself.  With 
profundity,  as  though  he  sucked  wisdom  from  its 
lowest  depth,  he  spouted  forth  on  the  transmutation 
of  the  baser  metals  or  tossed  you  a  phrase  from 
Paracelsus.  Or  with  long  instructive  finger  he 
dissertated  on  the  celestial  universe.  One  would  have 
thought  that  he  had  stood  by  on  the  making  of  it  and 
that  his  judgment  had  prevailed  in  the  larger 
problems.  Yet  he  did  not  neglect  his  trencher. 


10 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

And  now  as  time  went  on,  the  richness  of  the  food 
did  somewhat  dominate  his  person.  The  girth  of  his 
wisdom  grew  no  less,  but  his  hody  fattened.  In  a 
word,  the  good  gentleman's  palate  came  to  vie  with 
his  intellect.  Less  often  was  he  engaged  upon  some 
dark  saying  of  Isidore  of  Seville.  Rather,  even  if 
his  favorite  topic  astrology  were  uppermost  about 
the  table,  his  eye  travelled  to  the  pantry  on  every 
change  of  dishes.  His  fingers,  too,  came  to  curl  most 
delicately  on  his  fork.  He  used  it  like  an  epicure, 
poking  his  viands  apart  for  sharpest  scrutiny.  His 
nod  upon  a  compote  was  much  esteemed. 

Now  mark  his  further  decline!  On  an  occasion — 
surely  the  old  rascal's  head  is  turned! — he  would  be 
found  in  private  talk  with  his  hostess,  the  Lady  of 
Middlesex,  or  with  the  Countess  of  Monmouth,  not 
as  you  might  expect,  on  the  properties  of  fire  or  on 
the  mortal  diseases  of  man,  but — on  subjects  quite 
removed.  Society,  we  may  be  sure,  began  to  whisper 
of  these  snug  parleys  in  the  arbor  after  dinner,  these 
shadowed  mumblings  on  the  balcony  when  the  moon 
was  up — and  Lady  Digby  stiffened  into  watchfulness. 
It  was  when  they  took  leave  that  she  saw  the 
Countess  slip  a  note  into  her  lord's  fingers.  Her 
jealousy  broke  out.  "Viper!"  She  spat  the  words 
and  seized  her  husband's  wrist.  Of  course  the  note 
was  read.  It  proved,  however,  that  Sir  Kenelm  was 
innocent  of  all  mischief.  To  the  disappointment  of 
the  gossips,  who  were  tuned  to  a  spicier  anticipation, 
the  note  was  no  more  than  a  recipe  of  the  manner  that 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


the  Countess  was  used  to  mix  her  syllabub,  with 
instruction  that  it  was  the  "rosemary  a  little  bruised 
and  the  limon-peal  that  did  quicken  the  taste." 
Advice,  also,  followed  in  the  postscript  on  the  making 
of  tea,  with  counsel  that  "the  boiling  water  should 
remain  upon  it  just  so  long  as  one  might  say  a 
miserere/"  A  mutual  innocence  being  now  estab 
lished,  the  Lady  Digby  did  by  way  of  apology  peck 
the  Countess  on  the  cheek. 

Sir  Kenelm  died  in  1665,  full  of  years.  In  that 
day  his  fame  rested  chiefly  on  his  books  in  physic  and 
chirurgery.  His  most  enduring  work  was  still  to  be 
published—  "The  Closet  Opened." 

It  was  two  years  after  his  death  that  his  son  came 
upon  a  bundle  of  his  father's  papers  that  had  hitherto 
been  overlooked.  I  fancy  that  he  went  spying  in  the 
attic  on  a  rainy  day.  In  the  darkest  corner,  behind 
the  rocking  horse  —  if  such  devices  were  known  in 
those  distant  days  —  he  came  upon  a  trunk  of  his 
father's  papers.  "Od's  fish,"  said  Sir  Kenelm's  son, 
"here's  a  box  of  manuscripts.  It  is  like  that  they 
pertain  to  alchemy  or  chirurgery."  He  pulled  out  a 
bundle  and  held  it  to  the  light  —  such  light  as  came 
through  the  cobwebs  of  the  ancient  windows.  "Here 
be  strange  matters,"  he  exclaimed.  Then  he  read 
aloud:  "My  Lord  of  Bristol's  Scotch  collops  are 
thus  made  :  Take  a  leg  of  fine  sweet  mutton,  that  to 
make  it  tender,  is  kept  as  long  as  possible  may  be 
without  stinking.  In  winter  seven  or  eight  days"  — 
"Ho!  Ho!"  cried  Sir  Kenelm's  son.  "This  is  not 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


alchemy!"  He  drew  out  another  parchment  and  read 
again:  "My  Lord  of  Carlile's  sack  posset,  how  it's 
made:  Take  a  pottle  of  cream  and  boil  in  it  a  little 
whole  cinnamon  and  three  or  four  flakes  of  mace. 
Boil  it  until  it  simpreth  and  bubbleth." 

By  this  time,  as  you  may  well  imagine,  Sir 
Kenelm's  son  was  wrought  to  an  excitement.  It  is 
likely  that  he  inherited  his  father's  palate  and  that 
the  juices  of  his  appetite  were  stirred.  Seizing  an 
armful  of  the  papers,  he  leaped  down  the  attic  steps, 
three  at  a  time.  His  lady  mother  thrust  a  curled  and 
papered  head  from  her  door  and  asked  whether  the 
chimney  were  afire,  but  he  did  not  heed  her.  The 
cook  was  waddling  in  her  pattens.  He  cried  to  her 
to  throw  wood  upon  the  fire. 

That  night  the  Digby  household  was  served  a 
delicacy,  red  herrings  broiled  in  the  fashion  of  my 
Lord  d'Aubigny,  "short  and  crisp  and  laid  upon  a 
sallet."  Also,  there  was  a  wheaten  flommery  as  it 
was  made  in  the  West  Country  —  for  the  cook  chose 
quite  at  random  —  and  a  slip-coat  cheese  as  Master 
Phillips  proportioned  it.  Also,  against  the  colic, 
which  was  ravishing  the  country,  the  cook  prepared 
a  metheglin  as  Lady  Stuart  mixed  it  —  "'nettles, 
fennel  and  grumel  seeds,  of  each  two  ounces  being 
small-cut  and  mixed  with  honey  and  boiled  together." 
It  is  on  record  that  the  Lady  Digby  smiled  for  the 
first  time  since  her  lord  had  died,  and  when  the 
grinning  cook  bore  in  the  platter,  she  beat  upon  the 
table  with  her  spoon. 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


The  following  morning,  Sir  Kenelm's  son  posted 
to  London  bearing  the  recipes,  with  a  pistol  in  the 
pocket  of  his  great  coat  against  the  crossing  of 
Hounslow  Heath.  He  went  to  a  printer  at  the  Star 
in  Little  Britain  whose  name  was  H.  Brome. 

Shortly  the  book  appeared.  It  was  the  son  who 
wrote  the  preface:  "There  needs  no  Rhetoricating 
Floscules  to  set  it  off.  The  Authour,  as  is  well  known, 
having  been  a  Person  of  Eminency  for  his  Learning, 
and  of  Exquisite  Curiosity  in  his  Researches,  Even 
that  Incomparable  Sir  Kenelme  Digbie  Knight, 
Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  and  Chancellour  to  the 
Queen  Mother,  (Et  omen  in  Nomine)  His  name  does 
sufficiently  Auspicate  the  Work."  The  sale  of  the 
book  is  not  recorded.  It  is  supposed  that  the  Lady 
Middlesex,  so  many  of  whose  recipes  had  been  used, 
directed  that  her  chair  be  carried  to  the  shop  where 


14  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

the  book  was  for  sale  and  that  she  bought  largely  of 
it.  The  Countess  of  Dorset  bought  a  copy  and 
spelled  it  out  word  for  word  to  her  cook.  As  for  the 
Lady  Monmouth,  she  bought  not  a  single  copy,  which 
neglect  on  coming  to  the  Digbys  aroused  a  coolness. 

To  this  day  it  is  likely  that  a  last  auspicated 
volume  still  sits  on  its  shelf  with  the  spice  jars  in 
some  English  country  kitchen  and  that  a  worn  and 
toothless  cook  still  thumbs  its  leaves.  If  the  quests 
about  the  table  be  of  an  antique  mind,  still  will  they 
pledge  one  another  with  its  honeyed  drinks,  still  will 
they  pipe  and  whistle  of  its  virtues,  still  will  they— 

"EAT"  —A  flaring  sign  hangs  above  the  sidewalk. 
By  this  time,  in  our  noonday  search  for  food,  we  have 
come  into  the  thick  of  the  restaurants.  In  the  jungle 
of  the  city,  here  is  the  feeding  place.  Here  come  the 
growling  bipeds  for  such  bones  and  messes  as  are 
thrown  them. 

The  waiter  thrusts  a  card  beneath  my  nose.  "Nice 
leg  of  lamb,  sir?"  I  waved  him  off.  "Hold  a  bit!" 
I  cried.  "You'll  fetch  me  a  capon  in  white  broth  as 
my  Lady  Monmouth  broileth  hers.  Put  plentiful 
sack  in  it  and  boil  it  until  it  simpreth!"  The  waiter 
scratched  his  head.  "The  chicken  pie  is  good,"  he 
said.  "It's  our  Wednesday  dish."  "Varlet!"  I 
cried — then  softened.  "Let  it  be  the  chicken  pie! 
But  if  the  cook  knoweth  the  manner  that  Lord 
Carlile  does  mix  and  pepper  it,  let  that  manner  be 
followed  to  the  smallest  fraction  of  a  pinch!" 


S". 


1 


*- — 

On  Burins 


Old  Books 


(Y  SOME  slim  chance,  reader, 
you  may  be  the  kind  of  person 
who,  on  a  visit  to  a  strange  city, 
makes  for  a  hookshop.  Of  course 
your  slight  temporal  business 
may  detain  you  in  the  earlier 
hours  of  the  day.  You  sit  with 
committees  and  stroke  your  pro 
found  chin,  or  you  spend  your  talent  in  the  market, 
or  run  to  and  fro  and  wag  your  tongue  in  persuasion. 
Or,  if  you  be  on  a  holiday,  you  strain  yourself  on  the 
sights  of  the  city,  against  being  caught  in  an  omis 
sion.  The  bolder  features  of  a  cathedral  must  be 
grasped  to  satisfy  a  quizzing  neighbor  lest  he  shame 
you  later  on  your  hearth,  a  building  must  be  stuffed 
inside  your  memory,  or  your  pilgrim  feet  must  wear 
the  pavement  of  an  ancient  shrine.  However,  these 
duties  being  done  and  the  afternoon  having  not  yet 
declined,  do  you  not  seek  a  bookshop  to  regale 
yourself? 

Doubtless,  we  have  met.  As  you  have  scrunched 
against  the  shelf  not  to  block  the  passage,  but  with 
your  head  thrown  back  to  see  the  titles  up  above,  you 
may  have  noticed  at  the  corner  of  your  eye — unless 


16  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

it  was  one  of  your  blinder  moments  when  you  were 
fixed  wholly  on  the  shelf — a  man  in  a  slightly  faded 
overcoat  of  mixed  black  and  white,  a  man  just  past 
the  nimbleness  of  youth,  whose  head  is  plucked  of  its 
full  commodity  of  hair.  It  was  myself.  I  admit 
the  portrait,  though  modesty  has  curbed  me  short  of 
justice. 

Doubtless,  we  have  met.  It  was  your  umbrella — 
which  you  held  villainously  beneath  your  arm — that 
took  me  in  the  ribs  when  you  lighted  on  a  set  of 
Fuller's  Worthies.  You  recall  my  sour  looks,  but 
it  was  because  I  had  myself  lingered  on  the  volumes 
but  cooled  at  the  price.  How  you  smoothed  and 
fingered  them!  With  what  triumph  you  bore  them 
off!  I  bid  you — for  I  see  you  in  a  slippered  state, 
eased  and  unbuttoned  after  dinner — I  bid  you  turn 
the  pages  with  a  slow  thumb,  not  to  miss  the  slightest 
tang  of  their  humor.  You  will  of  course  go  first, 
because  of  its  broad  fame,  to  the  page  on  Shakespeare 
and  Ben  Jonson  and  their  wet-combats  at  the  Mer 
maid.  But  before  the  night  is  too  far  gone  and  while 
yet  you  can  hold  yourself  from  nodding,  you  will 
please  read  about  Captain  John  Smith  of  Virginia 
and  his  "strange  performances,  the  scene  whereof  is 
laid  at  such  a  distance,  they  are  cheaper  credited  than 
confuted." 

In  no  proper  sense  am  I  a  buyer  of  old  books.  I 
admit  a  bookish  quirk  maybe,  a  love  of  the  shelf,  a 
weakness  for  morocco,  especially  if  it  is  stained  with 
age.  I  will,  indeed,  shirk  a  wedding  for  a  bookshop. 


ON  BUYING  OLD  BOOKS 17_ 

I'll  go  in  "just  to  look  about  a  bit,  to  see  what  the 
fellow  has,"  and  on  an  occasion  I  pick  up  a  volume. 
But  I  am  innocent  of  first  editions.  It  is  a  stiff 
courtesy,  as  becomes  a  democrat,  that  I  bestow  on 
this  form  of  primogeniture.  Of  course,  I  have  nosed 
my  way  with  pleasure  along  aristocratic  shelves  and 
flipped  out  volumes  here  and  there  to  ask  their  price, 
but  for  the  greater  part,  it  is  the  plainer  shops  that 
engage  me.  If  a  rack  of  books  is  offered  cheap 
before  the  door,  with  a  fixed  price  upon  a  card,  I 
come  at  a  trot.  And  if  a  brown  dust  lies  on  them,  I 
bow  and  sniff  upon  the  rack,  as  though  the  past  like 
an  ancient  fop  in  peruke  and  buckle  were  giving  me 
the  courtesy  of  its  snuff  box.  If  I  take  the  dust  in 
my  nostrils  and  chance  to  sneeze,  it  is  the  fit  and 
intended  observance  toward  the  manners  of  a  former 
century. 

I  have  in  mind  such  a  bookshop  in  Bath,  England. 
It  presents  to  the  street  no  more  than  a  decent  front, 
but  opens  up  behind  like  a  swollen  bottle.  There  are 
twenty  rooms  at  least,  piled  together  with  such 
confusion  of  black  passages  and  winding  steps,  that 
one  might  think  that  the  owner  himself  must  hold  a 
thread  when  he  visits  the  remoter  rooms.  Indeed, 
such  are  the  obscurities  and  dim  turnings  of  the  place, 
that,  were  the  legend  of  the  Minotaur  but  English, 
you  might  fancy  that  the  creature  still  lived  in  this 
labyrinth,  to  nip  you  between  his  toothless  gums — 
for  the  beast  grows  old — at  some  darker  corner. 
There  is  a  story  of  the  place,  that  once  a  raw  clerk 


18  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

having  been  sent  to  rummage  in  the  basement,  his 
candle  tipped  off  the  shelf.  He  was  left  in  so  com 
plete  darkness  that  his  fears  overcame  his  judgment 
and  for  two  hours  he  roamed  and  babbled  among  the 
barrels.  Nor  was  his  absence  discovered  until  the 
end  of  the  day  when,  as  was  the  custom,  the  clerks 
counted  noses  at  the  door.  When  they  found  him, 
he  bolted  up  the  steps,  nor  did  he  cease  his  whimper 
until  he  had  reached  the  comforting  twilight  of  the 
outer  world.  He  served  thereafter  in  the  shop  a  full 
two  years  and  had  a  beard  coming — so  the  story 
runs — before  he  would  again  venture  beyond  the 
third  turning  of  the  passage;  to  the  stunting  of  his 
scholarship,  for  the  deeper  books  lay  in  the  farther 
windings. 

Or  it  may  appear  credible  that  in  ages  past  a 
jealous  builder  contrived  the  place.  Having  no 
learning  himself  and  being  at  odds  with  those  of 
better  opportunity,  he  twisted  the  pattern  of  the 
house.  Such  was  his  evil  temper,  that  he  set  the  steps 
at  a  dangerous  hazard  in  the  dark,  in  order  that 
scholars — whose  eyes  are  bleared  at  best — might  risk 
their  legs  to  the  end  of  time.  Those  of  strict 
orthodoxy  have  even  suspected  the  builder  to  have 
been  an  atheist,  for  they  have  observed  what  double 
joints  and  steps  and  turnings  confuse  the  passage  to 
the  devout er  books — the  Early  Fathers  in  particular 
being  up  a  winding  stair  where  even  the  soberest 
reader  might  break  his  neck.  Be  these  things  as  they 
may,  leather  bindings  in  sets  of  "grenadier  uni- 


ON  BUYING  OLD  BOOKS 19_ 

formity"  ornament  the  upper  and  lighter  rooms. 
Biography  straggles  down  a  hallway,  with  a  candle 
needed  at  the  farther  end.  A  room  of  dingy  plays — 
Wycherley,  Congreve  and  their  crew — looks  out 
through  an  area  grating.  It  was  through  even  so 
foul  an  eye,  that  when  alive,  they  looked  upon  the 
world.  As  for  theology,  except  for  the  before- 
mentioned  Fathers,  it  sits  in  general  and  dusty 
convention  on  the  landing  to  the  basement,  its  snuffy 
sermons,  by  a  sad  misplacement — or  is  there  an 
ironical  intention? — pointing  the  way  to  the  eternal 
abyss  below. 

It  was  in  this  shop  that  I  inquired  whether  there 
was  published  a  book  on  piracy  in  Cornwall.  Now, 
I  had  lately  come  from  Tintagel  on  the  Cornish 
coast,  and  as  I  had  climbed  upon  the  rocks  and  looked 
down  upon  the  sea,  I  had  wondered  to  myself 
whether,  if  the  knowledge  were  put  out  before  me, 
I  could  compose  a  story  of  Spanish  treasure  and 
pirates.  For  I  am  a  prey  to  such  giddy  ambition. 
A  foul  street — if  the  buildings  slant  and  topple — 
will  set  me  thinking  delightfully  of  murders.  A 
wharf-end  with  water  lapping  underneath  and  bits 
of  rope  about  will  set  me  itching  for  a  deep-sea  plot. 
Or  if  I  go  on  broader  range  and  see  in  my  fancy  a 
broken  castle  on  a  hill,  I'll  clear  its  moat  and  sound 
trumpets  on  its  walls.  If  there  is  pepper  in  my  mood, 
I'll  storm  its  dungeon.  Or  in  a  softer  moment  I'll 
trim  its  unsubstantial  towers  with  pageantry  and  rest 
upon  my  elbow  until  I  fall  asleep.  So  being  cast 


SO PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

upon  the  rugged  Cornish  coast  whose  cliffs  are  so 
swept  with  winter  winds  that  the  villages  sit  for 
comfort  in  the  hollows,  it  was  to  be  expected  that 
my  thoughts  would  run  toward  pirates. 

There  is  one  rock  especially  which  I  had  climbed 
in  the  rain  and  fog  of  early  morning.  A  reckless 
path  goes  across  its  face  with  a  sharp  pitch  to  the 
ocean.  It  was  so  slippery  and  the  wind  so  tugged 
and  pulled  to  throw  me  off,  that  although  I  endan 
gered  my  dignity,  I  played  the  quadruped  on  the 
narrower  parts.  But  once  on  top  in  the  open  blast 
of  the  storm  and  safe  upon  the  level,  I  thumped  with 
desire  for  a  plot.  In  each  inlet  from  the  ocean  I  saw 
a  pirate  lugger — such  is  the  pleasing  word — with  a 
keg  of  rum  set  up.  Each  cranny  led  to  a  cavern  with 
doubloons  piled  inside.  The  very  tempest  in  my  ears 
was  compounded  out  of  ships  at  sea  and  wreck  and 
pillage.  I  needed  but  a  plot,  a  thread  of  action  to 
string  my  villains  on.  If  this  were  once  contrived,  I 
would  spice  my  text  with  sailors'  oaths  and  such 
boasting  talk  as  might  lie  in  my  invention.  Could  I 
but  come  upon  a  plot,  I  might  yet  proclaim  myself 
an  author. 

With  this  guilty  secret  in  me  I  blushed  as  I  asked 
the  question.  It  seemed  sure  that  the  shopkeeper 
must  guess  my  purpose.  I  felt  myself  suspected  as 
though  I  were  a  rascal  buying  pistols  to  commit  a 
murder.  Indeed,  I  seem  to  remember  having  read 
that  even  hardened  criminals  have  become  confused 
before  a  shopkeeper  and  betrayed  themselves.  Of 


ON  BUYING  OLD  BOOKS 


course,  Dick  Turpin  and  Jerry  Abershaw  could  call 
for  pistols  in  the  same  easy  tone  they  ordered  ale,  but 
it  would  take  a  practiced  villainy.  But  I  in  my 
innocence  wanted  nothing  but  the  meager  outline  of 
a  pirate's  life,  which  I  might  fatten  to  my  uses. 

But  on  a  less  occasion,  when  there  is  no  plot 
thumping  in  me,  I  still  feel  a  kind  of  embarrassment 
when  I  ask  for  a  book  out  of  the  general  demand. 
I  feel  so  like  an  odd  stick.  This  embarrassment 
applies  not  to  the  request  for  other  commodities. 
I  will  order  a  collar  that  is  quite  outside  the  fashion, 
in  a  high-pitched  voice  so  that  the  whole  shop  can 
hear.  I  could  bargain  for  a  purple  waistcoat  —  did 
my  taste  run  so  —  and  though  the  sidewalk  listened, 
it  would  not  draw  a  blush.  I  have  traded  even  for 
women's  garments  —  though  this  did  strain  me  — 
without  an  outward  twitch.  Finally,  to  top  my 
valor,  I  have  bought  sheet  music  of  the  lighter  kind 
and  have  pronounced  the  softest  titles  so  that  all 
could  hear.  But  if  I  desire  the  poems  of  Lovelace 
or  the  plays  of  Marlowe,  I  sidle  close  up  to  the  shop 
keeper  to  get  his  very  ear.  If  the  book  is  visible,  I 
point  my  thumb  at  it  without  a  word. 

It  was  but  the  other  day  —  in  order  to  fill  a  gap  in 
a  paper  I  was  writing  —  I  desired  to  know  the  name 
of  an  author  who  is  obscure  although  his  work  has 
been  translated  into  nearly  all  languages.  I  wanted 
to  know  a  little  about  the  life  of  the  man  who  wrote 
Mary  Had  a  Little  Lamb,  which,  I  am  told,  is  known 
by  children  over  pretty  much  all  the  western  world. 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


It  needed  only  a  trip  to  the  Public  Library.  Any 
attendant  would  direct  me  to  the  proper  shelf.  Yet 
once  in  the  building,  my  courage  oozed.  My  question, 
though  serious,  seemed  too  ridiculous  to  be  asked.  I 
would  sizzle  as  I  met  the  attendant's  eye.  Of  a 
consequence,  I  fumbled  on  my  own  devices,  possibly 
to  the  increase  of  my  general  knowledge,  but  without 
gaining  what  I  sought. 

They  had  no  book  in  the  Bath  shop  on  piracy  in 
Cornwall.  I  was  offered  instead  a  work  in  two 
volumes  on  the  notorious  highwaymen  of  history,  and 
for  a  moment  my  plot  swerved  in  that  direction.  But 
I  put  it  by.  To  pay  the  fellow  for  his  pains  —  for  he 
had  dug  in  barrels  to  his  shoulders  and  had  a  smudge 
across  his  nose  —  I  bought  a  copy  of  Thomson's 
"Castle  of  Indolence,"  and  in  my  more  energetic 
moods  I  read  it.  And  so  I  came  away. 

On  leaving  the  shop,  lest  I  should  be  nipped  in  a 
neglect,  I  visited  the  Roman  baths.  Then  I  took  the 
waters  in  the  Assembly  Room.  It  was  Sam  Weller, 
you  may  recall,  who  remarked,  when  he  was  enter 
tained  by  the  select  footmen,  that  the  waters  tasted 
like  warm  flat-irons.  Finally,  I  viewed  the  Crescent 
around  which  the  shirted  Winkle  ran  with  the 
valorous  Dowler  breathing  on  his  neck.  With  such 
distractions,  as  you  may  well  imagine,  Cornish 
pirates  became  as  naught.  Such  mental  vibration  as 
I  had  was  now  gone  toward  a  tale  of  fashion  in  the 
days  when  Queen  Anne  was  still  alive.  Of  a  conse 
quence,  I  again  sought  the  bookshop  and  stifling  my 


ON  BUYING  OLD  BOOKS 


timidity,  I  demanded  such  volumes  as  might  set  me 
most  agreeably  to  my  task. 

I  have  in  mind  also  a  bookshop  of  small  pretension 
in  a  town  in  Wales.  For  purely  secular  delight, 
maybe,  it  was  too  largely  composed  of  Methodist 
sermons.  Hell  fire  burned  upon  its  shelves  with  a 
warmth  to  singe  so  poor  a  worm  as  I.  Yet  its  sign 
board  popped  its  welcome  when  I  had  walked  ten 
miles  of  sunny  road.  Possibly  it  was  the  chair  rather 
than  the  divinity  that  keeps  the  place  in  memory. 
The  owner  was  absent  on  an  errand,  and  his  daughter, 
who  had  been  clumping  about  the  kitchen  on  my 
arrival,  was  uninstructed  in  the  price  marks.  So  I 
read  and  fanned  myself  until  his  return. 

Perhaps  my  sluggishness  toward  first  editions — to 
which  I  have  hinted  above — comes  in  part  from  the 
acquaintance  with  a  man  who  in  a  linguistic  outburst 
as  I  met  him,  pronounced  himself  to  be  a  numismatist 
and  philatelist.  One  only  of  these  names  would  have 
satisfied  a  man  of  less  conceit.  It  is  as  though  the 
pteranodon  should  claim  also  to  be  the  spoon-bill 
dinosaur.  It  is  against  modesty  that  one  man  should 
summon  all  the  letters.  No,  the  numismatist's 
head  is  not  crammed  with  the  mysteries  of  life  and 
death,  nor  is  a  philatelist  one  who  is  possessed  with 
the  dimmer  secrets  of  eternity.  Rather,  this  man 
who  was  so  swelled  with  titles,  eked  a  living  by  selling 
coins  and  stamps,  and  he  was  on  his  way  to  Europe 
to  replenish  his  wares.  Inside  his  waistcoat,  just 
above  his  liver — if  he  owned  so  human  an  append- 


24  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

age — he  carried  a  magnifying  glass.  With  this, 
when  the  business  fit  was  on  him,  he  counted  the 
lines  and  dots  upon  a  stamp,  the  perforations  on  its 
edge.  He  catalogued  its  volutes,  its  stipples,  the 
frisks  and  curlings  of  its  pattern.  He  had  numbered 
the  very  hairs  on  the  head  of  George  Washington, 
for  in  such  minutiae  did  the  value  of  the  stamp  reside. 
Did  a  single  hair  spring  up  above  the  count,  it  would 
invalidate  the  issue.  Such  values,  got  by  circumstance 
or  accident — resting  on  a  flaw — founded  on  a  speck — 
cause  no  ferment  of  my  desires. 

For  the  buying  of  books,  it  is  the  cheaper  shops 
where  I  most  often  prowl.  There  is  in  London  a 
district  around  Charing  Cross  Road  where  almost 
every  shop  has  books  for  sale.  There  is  a  continuous 
rack  along  the  sidewalk,  each  title  beckoning  for  your 
attention.  You  recall  the  class  of  street-readers  of 
whom  Charles  Lamb  wrote — "poor  gentry,  who,  not 
having  wherewithal  to  buy  or  hire  a  book,  filch  a 
little  learning  at  the  open  stalls."  It  was  on  some 
such  street  that  these  folk  practiced  their  innocent 
larceny.  If  one  shopkeeper  frowned  at  the  diligence 
with  which  they  read  "Clarissa,"  they  would  continue 
her  distressing  adventures  across  the  way.  By  a 
lingering  progress  up  the  street,  "Sir  Charles  Grand- 
ison"  might  be  nibbled  down — by  such  as  had  the 
stomach — without  the  outlay  of  a  single  penny.  As 
for  Gibbon  and  the  bulbous  historians,  though  a 
whole  perusal  would  outlast  the  summer  and  stretch 
to  the  colder  months,  yet  with  patience  they  could  be 


ON  BUYING  OLD  BOOKS 


got  through.     However,  before  the  end  was 
even  a  hasty  reader  whose  eye  was  nimble  on  the 
would  be  blowing  on  his  nails  and  pulling  his 
tails  between  him  and  the  November  wind. 

But  the  habit  of  reading  at  the 
open  stalls  was  not  only  with  the 
poor.      You    will    remember 
that  Mr.  Brownlow  was  ad 
dicted.    Really,  had  not  the  (| 
Artful   Dodger   stolen  his 
pocket  handkerchief  as  he 
was  thus   engaged  upon 
his    book,    the    whole 
history   of   Oliver 
Twist  must  have  been 
quite     different.       And 
Pepys  himself,   Samuel 
Pepys,   F.   R.    S.,   was 
guilty.      "To   Paul's 
Church  Yard,"  he 
writes,  "and  there  looked 
upon  the  second  part  of 
Hudibras,  which  I  buy 
not,    but    borrow   to 
read."    Such  parsimony 
is  the  curse  of  authors. 
To   thumb    a   volume 
cheaply  around  a  neighbor 
hood  is  what  keeps  them  in 
their  garrets.     It  is  a  less  offence 


come, 
page, 
coat- 


<26  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

to  steal  peanuts  from  a  stand.  Also,  it  is  recorded 
in  the  life  of  Beau  Nash  that  the  persons  of  fashion  of 
his  time,  to  pass  a  tedious  morning  "did  divert  them 
selves  with  reading  in  the  booksellers'  shops."  We 
may  conceive  Mr.  Fanciful  Fopling  in  the  sleepy 
blink  of  those  early  hours  before  the  pleasures  of  the 
day  have  made  a  start,  inquiring  between  his  yawns 
what  latest  novels  have  come  down  from  London,  or 
whether  a  new  part  of  "Pamela"  is  offered  yet.  If  the 
post  be  in,  he  will  prop  himself  against  the  shelf  and — * 
unless  he  glaze  and  nod — he  will  read  cheaply  for  an 
hour.  Or  my  Lady  Betty,  having  taken  the  waters 
in  the  pump-room  and  lent  her  ear  to  such  gossip  as 
is  abroad  so  early,  is  now  handed  to  her  chair  and  goes 
round  by  Gregory's  to  read  a  bit.  She  is  flounced 
to  the  width  of  the  passage.  Indeed,  until  the  fashion 
shall  abate,  those  more  solid  authors  that  are  set  up 
in  the  rear  of  the  shop,  must  remain  during  her  visits 
in  general  neglect.  Though  she  hold  herself  against 
the  shelf  and  tilt  her  hoops,  it  would  not  be  possible 
to  pass.  She  is  absorbed  in  a  book  of  the  softer  sort, 
and  she  flips  its  pages  against  her  lap-dog's  nose. 

But  now  behold  the  student  coming  up  the  street! 
He  is  clad  in  shining  black.  He  is  thin  of  shank  as 
becomes  a  scholar.  He  sags  with  knowledge.  He 
hungers  after  wisdom.  He  comes  opposite  the  book 
shop.  It  is  but  coquetry  that  his  eyes  seek  the 
window  of  the  tobacconist.  His  heart,  you  may  be 
sure,  looks  through  the  buttons  at  his  back.  At  last 
he  turns.  He  pauses  on  the  curb.  Now  desire  has 


ON  BUYING  OLD  BOOKS 


clutched  him.     He  jiggles  his  trousered  shillings. 
He  treads  the  gutter.     He  squints  upon  the  rack. 
He  lights  upon  a  treasure.    He  plucks  it  forth.    He 
is  unresolved  whether  to  buy  it  or 
to  spend  the  extra  shilling  on  his 
dinner.     Now   all   you   cooks   to 
gether,  to  save  your  business,  rattle 
your  pans  to  rouse  him !    If  within 
these  ancient  buildings  there  are 
//onions    ready   peeled — quick! — 
throw  them  in  the  skillet  that  the 
whiff  may  come  beneath  his  nose! 
Chance    trembles    and    casts    its 
vote — eenie  meenie — down  goes  the 
shilling — he  has  bought  the  book. 
Tonight  he  will  spread  it  beneath 
his  candle.    Feet  may  beat  a  snare 
of  pleasure  on  the  pavement,  glad 
cries  may  pipe   across  the  dark 
ness,  a  fiddle  may  scratch  its  invi 
tation — all  the  rumbling  notes 
of  midnight  traffic  will  tap  in 
vain  their  summons  upon  his 
window. 


To  Beat  ft  Dog 


POSSIBLY  on  one 
Jr  of  your  country  walks  you  have 
come  upon  a  man  with  his  back 
^Tr.  against  a  hedge,  tormented  by  a 
fiend  in  the  likeness  of  a  dog.  You 
yourself,  of  course,  are  not  a 
coward.  You  possess  that  cornerstone  of  virtue,  a 
love  for  animals.  If  at  your  heels  a  dog  sniffs  and 
growls,  you  humor  his  mistake,  you  flick  him  off  and 
proceed  with  unbroken  serenity.  It  is  scarcely  an 
interlude  to  your  speculation  on  the  market.  Or  if 
you  work  upon  a  sonnet  and  are  in  the  vein,  your 
thoughts,  despite  the  beast,  run  unbroken  to  a  rhyme. 
But  pity  this  other  whose  heart  is  less  stoutly 
wrapped!  He  has  gone  forth  on  a  holiday  to  take 
the  country  air,  to  thrust  himself  into  the  freer  wind, 
to  poke  with  his  stick  for  such  signs  of  Spring  as  may 
be  hiding  in  the  winter's  leaves.  Having  been 
grinding  in  an  office  he  flings  himself  on  the  great 
round  world.  He  has  come  out  to  smell  the  earth. 
Or  maybe  he  seeks  a  hilltop  for  a  view  of  the  fields 
that  lie  below  patched  in  many  colors,  as  though 
nature  had  been  sewing  at  her  garments  and  had 
mended  the  cloth  from  her  bag  of  scraps. 


ANY  STICK  WILL  DO  TO  BEAT  A  DOG       29 

On  such  a  journey  this  fellow  is  travelling  when, 
at  a  turn  of  the  road,  he  hears  the  sound  of  barking. 
As  yet  there  is  no  dog  in  sight.  He  pauses.  He 
listens.  How  shall  one  know  whether  the  sound 
comes  up  a  wrathful  gullet  or  whether  the  dog  bays 
at  him  impersonally,  as  at  the  distant  moon?  Or 
maybe  he  vents  himself  upon  a  stubborn  cow.  Surely 
it  is  not  an  idle  tune  he  practices.  He  holds  a  victim 
in  his  mind.  There  is  sour  venom  on  his  churlish 
tooth.  Is  it  best  to  go  roundabout,  or  forward  with 
such  a  nice  compound  of  innocence,  boldness  and 
modesty  as  shall  satisfy  the  beast?  If  one  engross 
oneself  on  something  that  lies  to  the  lee  of  danger, 
it  allays  suspicion.  Or  if  one  absorb  oneself  upon  the 
flora — a  primrose  on  the  river's  brim — it  shows  him 
clear  and  stainless.  The  stupidest  dog  should  see 
that  so  close  a  student  can  have  no  evil  in  him. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  throw  away  one's  stick 
lest  it  make  a  show  of  violence.  Or  it  may  be  con 
cealed  along  the  outer  leg.  Ministers  of  Grace 
defend  us,  what  an  excitement  in  the  barnyard!  Has 
virtue  no  reward?  Shall  innocence  perish  off  the 
earth?  Not  one  dog,  but  many,  come  running  out. 
There  has  gone  a  rumor  about  the  barn  that  there 
is  a  stranger  to  be  eaten,  and  it's  likely — if  they  keep 
their  clamor — there  will  be  a  bone  for  each.  Note 
how  the  valor  oozes  from  the  man  of  peace !  Observe 
his  sidling  gait,  his  skirts  pulled  close,  his  hollowed 
back,  his  head  bent  across  his  shoulder,  his  startled 
eye!  Watch  him  mince  his  steps,  lest  a  lingering  heel 


S0_ PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

be  nipped!  Listen  to  him  try  the  foremost  dog  with 
names,  to  gull  him  to  a  belief  that  they  have  met 
before  in  happier  circumstances !  He  appeals  mutely 
to  the  farmhouse  that  a  recall  be  sounded.  The 
windows  are  tightly  curtained.  The  heavens  are 
comfortless. 

You  remember  the  fellow  in  the  play  who  would 
have  loved  war  had  they  not  digged  villainous  salt 
petre  from  the  harmless  earth.  The  countryside,  too, 
in  my  opinion,  would  be  more  peaceful  of  a  summer 
afternoon  were  it  not  overrun  with  dogs.  Let  me 
be  plain!  I  myself  like  dogs — sleepy  dogs  blinking 
in  the  firelight,  friendly  dogs  with  wagging  tails, 
young  dogs  in  their  first  puppyhood  with  their  teeth 
scarce  sprouted,  whose  jaws  have  not  yet  burgeoned 
into  danger,  and  old  dogs,  too,  who  sun  themselves 
and  give  forth  hollow,  toothless,  reassuring  sounds. 
When  a  dog  assumes  the  cozy  habits  of  the  cat  without 
laying  off  his  nobler  nature,  he  is  my  friend.  A  dog 
of  vegetarian  aspect  pleases  me.  Let  him  bear  a 
mild  eye  as  though  he  were  nourished  on  the  softer 
foods!  I  would  wish  every  dog  to  have  a  full  com 
plement  of  tail.  It's  the  sure  barometer  of  his  warm 
regard.  There's  no  art  to  find  his  mind's  construction 
in  the  face.  And  I  would  have  him  with  not  too  much 
curiosity.  It's  a  quality  that  brings  him  too  often  to 
the  gate.  It  makes  him  prone  to  sniff  when  one  sits 
upon  a  visit.  Nor  do  I  like  dogs  addicted  to  sudden 
excitement.  Lethargy  becomes  them  better.  Let 
them  be  without  the  Gallic  graces !  In  general,  I  like 


ANY  STICK  WILL  DO  TO  BEAT  A  DOG       31 

a  dog  to  whom  I  have  been  properly  introduced,  with 
an  exchange  of  credentials.  While  the  dog  is  by,  let 
his  master  take  my  hand  and  address  me  in  softest 
tones,  to  cement  the  understanding!  At  bench-shows 
I  love  the  beasts,  although  I  keep  to  the  middle  of 
the  aisle.  The  streets  are  all  the  safer  when  so  many 
of  the  creatures  are  kept  within. 

Frankly,  I  would  enjoy  the  country  more,  if  I 
knew  that  all  the  dogs  were  away  on  visits.  Of 
course,  the  highroad  is  quite  safe.  Its  frequent  traffic 
is  its  insurance.  Then,  too,  the  barns  are  at  such  a 
distance,  it  is  only  a  monstrous  anger  can  bring  the 
dog.  But  if  you  are  in  need  of  direction  you  select 
a  friendly  white  house  with  green  shutters.  You 
swing  open  the  gate  and  crunch  across  the  pebbles 
to  the  door.  To  the  nearer  eye  there  is  a  look  of 
"dog"  about  the  place.  Or  maybe  you  are  hot  and 
thirsty,  and  there  is  a  well  at  the  side  of  the  house. 
Is  it  better  to  gird  yourself  to  danger  or  to  put  off 
your  thirst  until  the  crossroads  where  pop  is  sold? 

Or  a  lane  leads  down  to  the  river.  Even  at  this 
distance  you  hear  the  shallow  brawl  of  water  on  the 
stones.  A  path  goes  off  across  a  hill,  with  trees 
beckoning  at  the  top.  There  is  a  wind  above  and 
a  wider  sweep  of  clouds.  Surely,  from  the  crest  of 
the  hill  the  whole  county  will  lie  before  you.  Such 
tunes  as  come  up  from  the  world  below — a  school- 
bell,  a  rooster  crowing,  children  laughing  on  the  road, 
a  threshing  machine  on  the  lower  meadows — such 
tunes  are  pitched  to  a  marvellous  softness.  Shall  we 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


follow  the  hot  pavement,  or  shall  we  dare  those  lonely 
stretches  ? 

There  is  a  kind  of  person  who  is  steeped  too  much 
in  valor.  He  will  cross  a  field  although  there  is  a  dog 
inside  the  fence.  Goodness  knows  that  I  would 
rather  keep  to  the  highroad  with  such  humility  as 
shall  not  rouse  the  creature.  Or  he  will  shout  and 
whistle  tunes  that  stir  the  dogs  for  miles.  He  slashes 
his  stick  against  the  weeds  as  though  in  challenge. 
One  might  think  that  he  went  about  on  unfeeling 
stalks  instead  of  legs  as  children  walk  on  stilts,  or 
that  a  former  accident  had  clipped  him  off  above  the 
knees  and  that  he  was  now  jointed  out  of  wood  to  a 
point  beyond  the  biting  limit.  Or  perhaps  the  clothes 
he  wears  beneath — the  inner  mesh  and  very  balbrig- 
gan  of  his  attire — is  of  so  hard  a  texture  that  it  turns 
a  tooth.  Be  these  defenses  as  they  may,  note  with 
what  bravado  he  mounts  the  wall!  One  leg  dangles 
as  though  it  were  baited  and  were  angling  for  a  bite. 

There  is  a  French  village  near  Quebec  whose 
population  is  chiefly  dogs.  It  lies  along  the  river  in 
a  single  street,  not  many  miles  from  the  point  where 
Wolfe  climbed  to  the  Plains  of  Abraham.  There  are 
a  hundred  houses  flat  against  the  roadway  and  on 
the  steps  of  each  there  sits  a  dog.  As  I  went  through 
on  foot,  each  of  these  dogs  picked  me  up,  examined 
me  nasally  and  passed  me  on,  not  generously  as 
though  I  had  stood  the  test,  but  rather  in  deep  sus 
picion  that  I  was  a  queer  fellow,  not  to  be  penetrated 
at  first,  but  one  who  would  surely  be  found  out  and 


ANY  STICK  WILL  DO  TO  BEAT  A  DOG       33 

gobbled  before  coming  to  the  end  of  the  street.  As 
long  as  I  would  eventually  furnish  forth  the  common 
banquet,  it  mattered  not  which  dog  took  the  first  nip. 
Inasmuch  as  I  would  at  last  be  garnished  for  the 
general  tooth,  it  would  be  better  to  wait  until  all  were 
gathered  around  the  platter.  "Good  neighbor  dog," 
each  seemed  to  say,  "y°u  too  sniff  upon  the  rogue! 
If  he  be  honest,  my  old  nose  is  much  at  fault." 
Meantime  I  padded  lightly  through  the  village,  at 
first  calling  on  the  dogs  by  English  names,  but  later 
using  such  wisps  as  I  had  of  French.  "Aucassin, 
mon  pauvre  chien.  Voici,  Tintagiles,  alors  done  mon 
cherie.  Je  suis  votre  ami,"  but  with  little  effect. 

But  the  dogs  that  one  meets  in  the  Canadian  woods 
are  of  the  fiercest  breed.  They  border  on  the  wolf. 
They  are  called  huskies  and  they  are  so  strong  and  so 
fleet  of  foot  that  they  pull  sleds  for  hours  across  the 
frozen  lakes  at  almost  the  speed  of  a  running  horse. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  they  are  handsome  and  if  it 
happens  to  be  your  potato  peelings  and  discarded  fish 
that  they  eat,  they  warm  into  friendliness.  Indeed,  on 
these  occasions,  one  can  make  quite  a  show  of  bravery 
by  stroking  and  dealing  lightly  with  them.  But  once 
upon  a  time  in  an  ignorant  moment  two  other  campers 
and  myself  followed  a  lonely  railroad  track  and 
struck  off  on  a  path  through  the  pines  in  search  of 
a  certain  trapper  on  a  fur  farm.  The  path  went  on 
a  broken  zigzag  avoiding  fallen  trees  and  soft  hollows, 
conducting  itself  on  the  whole  with  more  patience 
than  firmness.  We  walked  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  but 


34 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

still  we  saw  no  cabin.  The  line  of  the  railroad  had 
long  since  disappeared.  An  eagle  wheeled  above  us 
and  quarrelled  at  our  intrusion.  Presently  to  test  our 
course  and  learn  whether  we  were  coming  near  the 
cabin,  we  gave  a  shout.  Immediately  out  of  the 
deeper  woods  there  came  a  clamor  that  froze  us. 
Such  sounds,  it  seemed,  could  issue  only  from  bloody 
and  dripping  jaws.  In  a  panic,  as  by  a  common 
impulse  we  turned  and  ran.  Yet  we  did  not  run 
frankly  as  when  the  circus  lion  is  loose,  but  in  a  shame 
faced  manner — an  attempt  at  a  retreat  in  good 
order — something  between  a  walk  and  a  run.  At  the 
end  of  a  hundred  yards  we  stopped.  No  dogs  had 
fallen  on  us.  Danger  had  not  burst  its  kennel.  We 
hallooed  again,  to  rouse  the  trapper.  At  last,  after 
a  minute  of  suspense,  came  his  answering  voice,  the 
sweetest  sound  to  be  imagined.  Whereupon  I  came 
down  from  my  high  stump  which  I  had  climbed  for 
a  longer  view. 

I  am  convinced  that  I  am  not  alone  in  my — shall 
I  say  diffidence? — toward  dogs.  Indeed,  there  is 
evidence  from  the  oldest  times  that  mankind,  in  its 
more  honest  moments,  has  confessed  to  a  fear  of  dogs. 
In  recognition  of  this  general  fear,  the  unmuzzled 
Cerberus  was  put  at  the  gate  of  Hades.  It  was 
rightly  felt  that  when  the  unhappy  pilgrims  got 
within,  his  fifty  snapping  heads  were  better  than 
a  bolt  upon  the  door.  It  was  better  for  them  to 
endure  the  ills  they  had,  than  be  nipped  in  the  upper 
passage.  He,  also,  who  first  spoke  the  ancient 


ANY  STICK  WILL  DO  TO  BEAT  A  DOG       35 

proverb,  Let  sleeping  dogs  lie,  did  no  more  than  voice 
the  caution  of  the  street.  And  he,  also,  who  invented 
the  saying  that  the  world  is  going  to  the  bow-wows, 
lodged  his  deplorable  pessimism  in  fitting  words. 

It  was  Daniel  who  sat  with  the  lions.  But  there 
are  degrees  of  bravery.  On  Long  Street,  within 
sight  of  my  window — just  where  the  street  gets  into 
its  most  tangled  traffic — there  has  hung  for  many 
years  the  painted  .signboard  of  a  veterinary  surgeon. 
Its  artist  was  in  the  first  flourish  of  youth.  Old  age 
had  not  yet  chilled  him  when  he  mixed  his  gaudy 
colors.  The  surgeon's  name  is  set  up  in  modest 
letters,  but  the  horse  below  flames  with  color.  What 
a  flaring  nostril!  What  an  eager  eye!  How  arched 
the  neck!  Here  is  a  wrath  and  speed  unknown  to  the 
quadrupeds  of  this  present  Long  Street.  Such  mild- 
eyed,  accumbent,  sharp-ribbed  horses  as  now  infest 
the  curb — mere  whittlings  from  a  larger  age — hang 
their  heads  at  their  degeneracy.  Indeed,  these  horses 
seem  to  their  owners  not  to  be  worth  the  price  of  a 
nostrum.  If  disease  settles  in  them,  let  them  lean 
against  a  post  until  the  fit  is  past!  And  of  a  conse 
quence,  the  doctor's  work  has  fallen  off.  It  has 
become  a  rare  occasion  when  it  is  permitted  him  to 
stroke  his  chin  in  contemplation  of  some  inner  palsy. 
Therefore  to  give  his  wisdom  scope,  the  doctor  some 
time  since  announced  the  cellar  of  the  building  to  be 
a  hospital  for  dogs.  Must  I  press  the  analogy?  I 
have  seen  the  doctor  with  bowl  and  spoon  in  hand 
take  leave  of  the  cheerful  world.  He  opens  the  cellar 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


door.  A  curdling  yelp  comes  up  the  stairs.  In  the 
abyss  below  there  are  twenty  dogs  at  least,  all  of 
them  sick,  all  dangerous.  Not  since  Orion  led  his 
hunting  pack  across  the  heavens  has  there  been  so 
fierce  a  sound.  The  door  closes.  There  is  a  final  yelp, 
such  as  greets  a  bone.  Doubtless,  by  this  time,  they 
are  munching  on  the  doctor.  Good  sir,  had  you  lived 
in  pre-apostolic  days,  your  name  would  have  been 
lined  with  Daniel's  in  the  hymn.  I  might  have  spent 
my  earliest  treble  in  your  praise. 

But  there  are  other  kinds  of  dogs.  Gentlest  of 
readers,  have  you  ever  passed  a  few  days  at  Tun- 
bridge  Wells?  It  lies  on  one  of  the  roads  that  run 
from  London  to  the  Channel  and  for  several  hundred 
years  persons  have  gone  there  to  take  the  waters 
against  the  more  fashionable  ailments.  Its  chief 
fame  was  in  the  days  when  rich  folk,  to  ward  off  for 
the  season  a  touch  of  ancestral  gout,  travelled  down 
from  London  in  their  coaches.  We  may  fancy  Lord 
Thingumdo  crossing  his  sleek  legs  inside  or  putting 
his  head  to  the  window  on  the  change  of  horses.  He 
has  outriders  and  a  horn  to  sound  his  coming.  His 
Lordship  has  a  liver  that  must  be  mended,  but  also  he 
has  a  weakness  for  the  gaming  table.  Or  Lady 
Euphemia,  wrapped  in  silks,  languishes  mornings  in 
her  lodgings  with  a  latest  novel,  but  goes  forth  at 
noon  upon  the  Pantilles  to  shop  in  the  stalls.  A  box 
of  patches  must  be  bought.  A  lace  flounce  has  caught 
her  eye.  Bless  her  dear  eyes,  as  she  bends  upon  her 
purchase  she  is  fair  to  look  upon.  The  Grand  Rout 


ANY  STICK  WILL  DO  TO  BEAT  A  DOG       37 

is  set  for  tonight.  Who  knows  but  that  the  Duke  will 
put  the  tender  question  and  will  ask  her  to  name  the 
happy  day? 

But  these  golden  days  are  past.  Tunbridge  Wells 
has  sunk  from  fashion.  The  gaming  tables  are  gone. 
A  band  still  plays  mornings  in  the  Pantilles — or  did 
so  before  the  war — but  cheaper  gauds  are  offered  in 
the  shops.  Emerald  brooches  are  fallen  to  paste.  In 
all  the  season  there  is  scarcely  a  single  demand  for 
a  diamond  garter.  If  there  were  now  a  Rout,  the 
only  dancers  would  be  stiff  shadows  from  the  past. 
The  healing  waters  still  trickle  from  the  ground  and 
an  old  woman  serves  you  for  a  penny,  but  the  miracle 
has  gone.  The  old  world  is  cured  and  dead. 

Tunbridge  Wells  is  visited  now  chiefly  by  old 
ladies  whose  husbands — to  judge  by  the  black  lace 
caps — have  left  Lombard  Street  for  heaven.  At  the 
hotel  where  I  stopped,  which  was  at  the  top  of  the 
Commons  outside  the  thicker  town,  I  was  the  only 
man  in  the  breakfast  room.  Two  widows,  each  with 
a  tiny  dog  on  a  chair  beside  her,  sat  at  the  next  table. 
This  was  their  conversation: 

"Did  you  hear  her  last  night?" 

"Was  it  Flossie  that  I  heard?" 

"Yes.  The  poor  dear  was  awake  all  night.  She 
got  her  feet  wet  yesterday  when  I  let  her  run  upon 
the  grass." 

But  after  breakfast — if  the  day  is  sunny  and  the 
wind  sits  in  a  favoring  quarter — one  by  one  the 


38 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


widows  go  forth  in  their  chairs.  These  are  wicker 
contrivances  that  hang  between  three  wrheels.  Burros 
pull  them,  and  men  walk  alongside  to  hold  their 
bridles.  Down  comes  the  widow.  Down  comes  a 
maid  with  her  wraps.  Down  comes  a  maid  with 
Flossie.  The  wraps  are  adjusted.  The  widow 
is  handed  in.  Her  feet  are  wound  around 
with  comforters  against  a  draft.  Her  salts 
rest  in  her  lap.  Her  ample  bag  of  knitting 
is  safe  aboard.  Flossie  is  placed  beside  her.  || 
Proot !  The  donkey  starts. 

All  morning  the  widow  sits  in 
the  Pantilles  and  listens  to  the  band 
and  knits.    Flossie  sits  on  the  flag 
ging  at  her  feet  with  an  intent  eye 
upon    the    ball    of    worsted. 
Twice   in    a   morning — three        ?  y 
times  if  the  gods  are  kind — 
the  ball  rolls  to  the  pavement. 
Flossie  has  been  waiting 
so  long  for  this  to  hap 
pen.      It   is   the   bright 
moment  of  her  life — the 
point  and  peak  of  hap 
piness.     She  darts  upon 
it.     She  paws  it  exult 
antly    for    a    moment. 
Brief  is  the  rainbow  and 
brief  the  Borealis.     The 
finger  of  Time  is  swift. 


ANY  STICK  WILL  DO  TO  BEAT  A  DOG       39 

The  poppy  blooms  and  fades.    The  maid  captures  the 
ball  of  worsted  and  restores  it. 

It  lies  in  the  widow's  lap.  The  band  plays.  The 
needles  click  to  a  long  tune.  The  healing  waters 
trickle  from  the  ground.  The  old  woman  whines 
their  merits.  Flossie  sits  motionless,  her  head  cocked 
and  her  eye  upon  the  ball.  Perhaps  the  god  of 
puppies  will  again  be  good  to  her. 


Y    GRANDFATHER'S 

farm  lay  somewhere  this 
side  of  the  sunset,  so  near 
that  its  pastures  barely 
missed  the  splash  of  color. 
But  from  the  city  it  was  a  two  hours'  journey  by 
horse  and  phaeton.  My  grandfather  drove.  I  sat 
next,  my  feet  swinging  clear  of  the  lunchbox.  My 
brother  had  the  outside,  a  place  denied  to  me  for  fear 
that  I  might  fall  across  the  wheel.  When  we  were  all 
set,  my  mother  made  a  last  dab  at  my  nose — an 
unheeded  smudge  having  escaped  my  vigilance. 
Then  my  grandfather  said,  "Get  up," — twice,  for  the 
lazy  horse  chose  to  regard  the  first  summons  as  a  jest. 
We  start.  The  great  wheels  turn.  My  brother  leans 
across  the  guard  to  view  the  miracle.  We  crunch  the 
gravel.  We  are  alive  for  excitement.  My  brother 
plays  we  are  a  steamboat  and  toots.  I  toot  in 
imitation,  but  higher  up  as  if  I  were  a  younger  sort 
of  steamboat.  We  hold  our  hands  on  an  imaginary 
wheel  and  steer.  We  scorn  grocery  carts  and  all  such 
harbor  craft.  We  are  on  a  long  cruise.  Street 
lights  will  guide  us  sailing  home. 

Of  course  there  were  farms  to  the  south  of  the  city 
and  apples  may  have  ripened  there  to  as  fine  a  flavor, 
and  to  the  east,  also,  doubtless  there  were  farms.  It 


ROADS  OF  MORNING 


would  be  asking  too  much  that  the  west  should  have 
all  the  haystacks,  cherry  trees  and  cheese  houses.  If 
your  judgment  skimmed  upon  the  surface,  you  would 
even  have  found  the  advantage  with  the  south.  It 
was  prettier  because  more  rolling.  It  was  shaggier. 
The  country  to  the  south  tipped  up  to  the  hills,  so 
sharply  in  places  that  it  might  have  made  its  living 
by  collecting  nickels  for  the  slide.  Indeed,  one  might 
think  that  a  part  of  the  city  had  come  bouncing  down 
the  slope,  for  now  it  lay  resting  at  the  bottom, 
sprawled  somewhat  for  its  ease.  Or  it  might 
appear  —  if  your  belief  runs  on  discarded  lines  — 
that  the  whole  flat-bottomed  earth  had  been  fouled  in 
its  celestial  course  and  now  lay  aslant  upon  its  beam 
with  its  cargo  shifted  and  spilled  about. 

The  city  streets  that  led  to  the  south,  which  in  those 
days  ended  in  lanes,  popped  out  of  sight  abruptly  at 
the  top  of  the  first  ridge.  And  when  the  earth  caught 
up  again  with  their  level,  already  it  was  dim  and 
purple  and  tall  trees  were  no  more  than  a  roughened 
hedge.  But  what  lay  beyond  that  range  of  hills— 
what  towns  and  cities  —  what  oceans  and  forests  — 
how  beset  with  adventure  —  how  fearful  after  dark— 
these  things  you  could  not  see,  even  if  you  climbed 
to  some  high  place  and  strained  yourself  on  tiptoe. 
And  if  you  walked  from  breakfast  to  lunch  —  until 
you  gnawed  within  and  were  but  a  hollow  drum  — 
there  would  still  be  a  higher  range  against  the  sky. 
There  are  misty  kingdoms  on  this  whirling  earth,  but 
the  ways  are  long  and  steep. 


40 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

The  lake  lay  to  the  north  with  no  land  beyond,  the 
city  to  the  east.  But  to  the  west- 
Several  miles  outside  the  city  as  it  then  was,  and 
still  beyond  its  clutches,  the  country  was  cut  by  a 
winding  river  bottom  with  sharp  edges  of  shale. 
Down  this  valley  Rocky  River  came  brawling  in  the 
spring,  over-fed  and  quarrelsome.  Later  in  the 
year — its  youthful  appetite  having  caught  an  indi 
gestion — it  shrunk  and  wasted  to  a  shadow.  By 
August  you  could  cross  it  on  the  stones.  The  uproar 
of  its  former  flood  was  marked  upon  the  shale  and 
trunks  of  trees  here  and  there  were  wedged,  but  now 
the  river  plays  drowsy  tunes  upon  the  stones.  There 
is  scarcely  enough  movement  of  water  to  flick  the 
sunlight.  A  leaf  on  its  idle  current  is  a  lazy  craft 
whose  skipper  nods.  There  were  hickory  trees  on  the 
point  above.  May-apples  grew  in  the  deep  woods, 
and  blackberries  along  the  fences.  And  in  the  season 
sober  horses  plowed  up  and  down  the  fields  with 
nodding  heads,  affirming  their  belief  in  the  goodness 
of  the  soil  and  their  willingness  to  help  in  its  fruition. 
Yet  the  very  core  of  this  valley  in  days  past  was 
a  certain  depth  of  water  at  a  turn  of  the  stream. 
There  was  a  clay  bank  above  it  and  on  it  small  naked 
boys  stood  and  daubed  themselves.  One  of  them  put 
a  band  of  clay  about  himself  by  way  of  decoration. 
Another,  by  a  more  general  smudge,  made  himself  a 
Hottentot  and  thereby  gave  his  manners  a  wider 
scope  and  license.  But  by  daubing  yourself  entire 
you  became  an  Indian  and  might  vent  yourself  in 


ROADS  OF  MORNING 


hideous  yells,  for  it  was  amazing  how  the  lungs  grew 
stouter  when  the  clay  was  laid  on  thick.  Then  you 
tapped  your  flattened  palm  rapidly  against  your 
mouth  and  released  an  intermittent  uproar  in  order 
that  the  valley  might  be  warned  of  the  deviltry  to 
come.  You  circled  round  and  round  and  beat  upon 
the  ground  in  the  likeness  of  a  war  dance.  But  at 
last,  sated  with  scalps,  off  you  dived  into  the  pool  and 
came  up  a  white  man.  Finally,  you  stood  on  one  leg 
and  jounced  the  water  from  your  ear,  or  pulled  a 
bloodsucker  from  your  toes  before  he  sapped  your 
life  —  for  this  tiny  creature  of  the  rocks  was  credited 
with  the  gift  of  prodigious  inflation,  and  might  inhale 
you,  blood,  sinews,  suspenders  and  all,  if  left  to  his 
ugly  purpose. 

Farms  should  not  be  too  precisely  located  ;  at  least 
this  is  true  of  farms  which,  like  my  grandfather's, 
hang  in  a  mist  of  memory.  I  read  once  of  a  wonderful 
spot  —  quite  inferior,  doubtless,  to  my  grandfather's 
farm  —  which  was  located  by  evil  directions  inten 
tionally  to  throw  a  seeker  off.  Munchausen,  you  will 
recall,  in  the  placing  of  his  magic  countries,  was  not 
above  this  agreeable  villainy.  Robinson  Crusoe  was 
loose  and  vague  in  the  placing  of  his  island.  It  is 
said  that  Izaak  Walton  waved  a  hand  obscurely 
toward  the  stream  where  he  had  made  a  catch,  but 
could  not  be  cornered  to  a  nice  direction,  lest  his  pool 
be  overrun.  In  early  youth,  I  myself  went,  on  a 
mischievous  hint,  to  explore  a  remote  region  which  I 
was  told  lay  in  the  dark  behind  the  kindling  pile. 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


But  because  I  moved  in  a  fearful  darkness,  quite 
beyond  the  pale  light  from  the  furnace  room,  I  lost 
the  path.  It  did  not  lead  me  to  the  peaks  and  the 
roaring  waters. 

But  the  farm  was  reached  by  more  open  methods. 
Dolly  and  the  phaeton  were  the  chief  instruments. 
First — if  you  were  so  sunk  in  ignorance  as  not  to  know 
the  road — you  inquired  of  everybody  for  the  chewing 
gum  factory,  to  be  known  by  its  smell  of  peppermint. 
Then  you  sought  the  high  bridge  over  the  railroad 
tracks.  Beyond  was  Kamm's  Corners.  Here,  at  a 
turn  of  the  road,  was  a  general  store  whose  shelves 
sampled  the  produce  of  this  whole  fair  world  and  the 
factories  thereof.  One  might  have  thought  that  the 
proprietor  emulated  Noah  at  the  flood  by  bidding 
two  of  each  created  things  to  find  a  place  inside. 

Beyond  Kamm's  Corners  you  came  to  the  great 
valley.  When  almost  down  the  hill  you  passed  a 
house  with  broken  windows  and  unkept  grass.  This 
house,  by  report,  was  haunted,  but  you  could  laugh 
at  such  tales  while  the  morning  sun  was  up.  At  the 
bottom  of  the  hill  a  bridge  crossed  the  river,  with 
loose  planking  that  rattled  as  though  the  man  who 
made  nails  was  dead. 

Beyond  the  bridge,  at  the  first  rise  of  ground,  the 
horse  stopped — for  I  assume  that  you  drove  a 
sagacious  animal — by  way  of  hint  that  every  one  of 
sound  limb  get  out  and  walk  to  the  top  of  the  hill. 
A  suspicious  horse  turned  his  head  now  and  again  and 


ROADS  OF  MORNING 45 

cast  his  eye  upon  the  buggy  to  be  sure  that  no  one 
climbed  in  again. 

Presently  you  came  to  the  toll-gate  at  the  top  and 
paid  its  keeper  five  cents,  or  whatever  large  sum  he 
demanded.  Then  your  grandfather — if  by  fortunate 
chance  you  happened  to  have  one — asked  after  his 
wife  and  children,  and  had  they  missed  the  croup; 
then  told  him  his  corn  was  looking  well. 

My  grandfather — for  it  is  time  you  knew  him — 
lived  with  us.  Because  of  a  railway  accident  fifteen 
years  before  in  which  one  of  his  legs  was  cut  off  just 
below  the  knee,  he  had  retired  from  public  office. 
Several  years  of  broken  health  had  been  followed  by 
years  that  were  for  the  most  part  free  from  suffering. 
My  own  first  recollection  reverts  to  these  better  years. 
I  recall  a  tall  man — to  my  eyes  a  giant,  for  he  was 
taller  even  than  my  father — who  came  into  the 
nursery  as  I  was  being  undressed.  There  was  a  wind 
in  the  chimney,  and  the  windows  rattled.  He  put 
his  crutches  against  the  wall.  Then  taking  me  in  his 
arms,  he  swung  me  aloft  to  his  shoulder  by  a  series 
of  somersaults.  I  cried  this  first  time,  but  later  I 
came  to  demand  the  performance. 

Once,  when  I  was  a  little  older,  I  came  upon  one 
of  his  discarded  wooden  legs  as  I  was  playing  in  the 
garret  of  the  house.  It  was  my  first  acquaintance 
with  such  a  contrivance.  It  lay  behind  a  pile  of 
trunks  and  I  was,  at  the  time,  on  my  way  to  the 
center  of  the  earth,  for  the  cheerful  path  dove  into 
darkness  behind  the  chimney.  You  may  imagine  my 


46 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

surprise.  I  approached  it  cautiously.  I  viewed  it 
from  all  sides  by  such  dusty  light  as  fell  between  the 
trunks.  Not  without  fear  I  touched  it.  It  was 
unmistakably  a  leg — but  whose?  Was  it  possible 
that  there  was  a  kind  of  Bluebeard  in  the  family,  who, 
for  his  pleasure,  lopped  off  legs?  There  had  been 
no  breath  of  such  a  scandal.  Yet,  if  my  reading  and 
studies  were  correct,  such  things  had  happened  in 
other  families  not  very  different  from  ours;  not  in 
our  own  town  maybe,  but  in  such  near-by  places  as 
Kandahar  and  Serendib — places  which  in  my  warm 
regard  were  but  as  suburbs  to  our  street,  to  be  gained 
if  you  persevered  for  a  hundred  lamp-posts.  Or 
could  the  leg  belong  to  Annie  the  cook?  Her  nimble- 
ness  with  griddle-cakes  belied  the  thought:  And 
once,  when  the  wind  had  swished  her  skirts,  manifestly 
she  was  whole  and  sound.  Then  all  at  once  I  knew 
it  to  be  my  grandfather's.  Grown  familiar,  I  pulled 
it  to  the  window.  I  tried  it  on,  but  made  bad  work 
of  walking. 

To  the  eye  my  grandfather  had  two  legs  all  the 
way  down  and,  except  for  his  crutches  and  an  occa 
sional  squeak,  you  would  not  have  detected  his 
infirmity.  Evidently  the  maker  did  no  more  than 
imitate  nature,  although,  for  myself,  I  used  to  wonder 
at  the  poverty  of  his  invention.  There  would  be 
distinction  in  a  leg,  which  in  addition  to  its  usual 
functions,  would  also  bend  forward  at  the  knee,  or 
had  a  surprising  sidewise  joint — and  there  would  be 
profit,  too,  if  one  cared  to  make  a  show  of  it.  The 


ROADS  OF  MORNING 


greatest  niggard  on  the  street  would  pay  two  pins 
for  such  a  sight. 

As  my  grandfather  was  the  only  old  gentleman  of 
my  acquaintance,  a  wooden  leg  seemed  the  natural 
and  suitable  accompaniment  of  old  age.  Persons,  it 
appeared,  in  their  riper  years,  cast  off  a  leg,  as  trees 
dropped  their  leaves.  But  my  grandmother  puzzled 
me.  Undeniably  she  retained  both  of  hers,  yet  her 
hair  was  just  as  white,  and  she  was  almost  as  old. 
Evidently  this  law  of  nature  worked  only  with  men. 
Ladies,  it  seemed,  were  not  deciduous.  But  how  the 
amputation  was  effected  in  men  —  whether  by  day  or 
night  —  how  the  choice  fell  between  the  right  and 
left  —  whether  the  wooden  leg  came  down  the  chimney 
(a  proper  entrance)  —  how  soon  my  father  would  go 
the  way  of  all  masculine  flesh  and  cast  his  off  —  these 
matters  I  could  not  solve.  The  Arabian  Nights  were 
silent  on  the  subject.  Aladdin's  uncle,  apparently, 
had  both  his  legs.  He  was  too  brisk  in  villainy  to 
admit  a  wooden  leg.  But  then,  he  was  only  an  uncle. 
If  his  history  ran  out  to  the  end,  doubtless  he  would 
go  with  a  limp  in  his  riper  days.  The  story  of  the 
Bible  —  although  it  trafficked  in  such  veterans  as 
Methuselah  —  gave  not  a  hint.  Abraham  died  full  of 
years.  Here  would  have  been  a  proper  test  —  but  the 
book  was  silent. 

My  grandfather  in  those  days  had  much  leisure 
time.  He  still  kept  an  office  at  the  rear  of  the  house, 
although  he  had  given  up  the  regular  practice  of  the 
law.  But  a  few  old  clients  lingered  on,  chiefly  women 


48 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

who  carried  children  in  their  arms  and  old  men 
without  neckties  who  came  to  him  for  free  advice. 
These  he  guided  patiently  in  their  troubles,  and  he 
would  sit  an  hour  to  listen  to  a  piteous  story.  In  an 
extremity  he  gave  them  money,  or  took  a  well-meant 
but  worthless  note.  Often  his  callers  overran  the 
dinner  hour  and  my  mother  would  have  to  jingle  the 
dinner  bell  at  the  door  to  rouse  them.  Occasionally 
he  would  be  called  on  for  a  public  speech,  and  for 
several  days  he  would  be  busy  at  his  desk.  Frequently 
he  presided  at  dinners  and  would  tell  a  story  and  sing 
a  song,  for  he  had  a  fine  bass  voice  and  was  famous 
for  his  singing. 

He  read  much  in  those  last  years  in  science.  When 
he  was  not  reading  Trowbridge  to  his  grandchildren, 
it  was  Huxley  to  himself.  But  when  his  eyes  grew 
tired,  he  would  on  an  occasion — if  there  was  canning 
in  the  house — go  into  the  kitchen  where  my  mother 
and  grandmother  worked,  and  help  pare  the  fruit. 
Seriously,  as  though  he  were  engaged  upon  a  game, 
he  would  cut  the  skin  into  thinnest  strips,  unbroken 
to  the  end,  and  would  hold  up  the  coil  for  us  to  see. 
Or  if  he  broke  it  in  the  cutting  it  was  a  point  against 
him  in  the  contest. 

His  diversion  rather  than  his  profit  was  the  care 
and  rental  of  about  twenty  small  houses,  some  of 
which  he  built  to  fit  his  pensioners.  My  brother  and 
myself  often  made  the  rounds  with  him  in  the  phaeton. 
At  most  of  the  houses  he  was  affectionately  greeted 
as  "  Jedge"  and  was  held  in  long  conversations  across 


ROADS  OF  MORNING 49 

the  fence.  And  to  see  an  Irishman  was  to  see  a 
friend.  They  all  knew  him  and  said,  "Good  mornm'," 
as  we  passed.  He  and  they  were  good  Democrats 
together. 

I  can  see  in  memory  a  certain  old  Irishman  in  a 
red  flannel  shirt,  with  his  foot  upon  the  hub,  bending 
across  the  wheel  and  gesticulating  in  an  endless 
discussion  of  politics  or  crops,  while  my  brother  and 
I  were  impatient  to  be  off.  Dolly  was  of  course 
patient,  for  she  had  long  since  passed  her  fretful 
youth.  If  by  any  biological  chance  it  had  happened 
that  she  had  been  an  old  lady  instead  of  a  horse,  she 
would  have  been  the  kind  that  spent  her  day  in  a 
rocker  with  her  knitting.  Any  one  who  gave  Dolly 
an  excuse  for  standing  was  her  friend.  There  she 
stood  as  though  she  wished  the  colloquy  to  last 
forever. 

It  was  seldom  that  Dolly  lost  her  restraint.  She 
would,  indeed,  when  she  came  near  the  stable,  some 
what  hasten  her  stride;  and  when  we  came  on  our 
drives  to  the  turning  point  and  at  last  headed  about 
for  home,  Dolly  would  know  it  and  show  her  knowl 
edge  by  a  quickening  of  the  ears  and  the  quiver  of  a 
faint  excitement.  Yet  Dolly  lost  her  patience  when 
there  were  flies.  Then  she  threw  off  all  repression 
and  so  waved  her  tail  that  she  regularly  got  it  across 
the  reins.  This  stirred  my  grandfather  to  something 
not  far  short  of  anger.  How  vigorously  would  he  try 
to  dislodge  the  reins  by  pulling  and  jerking!  Dolly 
only  clamped  down  her  tail  the  harder.  Experience 


50 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

showed  that  the  only  way  was  to  go  slowly  and 
craftily  and  without  heat  or  temper — a  slackening  of 
the  reins — a  distraction  of  Dolly's  attention — a 
leaning  across  the  dashboard — a  firm  grasping  of  the 
tail  out  near  the  end — a  sudden  raising  thereof.  Ah! 
It  was  done.  We  all  settled  back  against  the  cushions. 
Or  perhaps  a  friendly  fly  would  come  to  our  assist 
ance  and  Dolly  would  have  to  use  her  tail  in  another 
direction. 

The  whip  was  seldom  used.  Generally  it  stood  in 
its  socket.  It  was  ornamental  like  a  flagstaff.  It 
forgot  its  sterner  functions.  But  Dolly  must  have 
known  the  whip  in  some  former  life,  for  even  a 
gesture  toward  the  socket  roused  her.  If  it  was 
rattled  she  mended  her  pace  for  a  block.  But  if  on 
a  rare  occasion  my  grandfather  took  it  in  his  hand, 
Dolly  lay  one  ear  back  in  our  direction,  for  she  knew 
then  he  meant  business.  And  what  an  excitement 
would  arise  in  the  phaeton!  We  held  on  tight  for 
fear  that  she  might  take  it  into  her  mild  old  head  to 
run  away. 

But  Dolly  had  her  moments.  One  sunny  summer 
•  afternoon  while  she  grazed  peacefully  in  the  orchard, 
with  her  reins  wound  around  the  whip  handle — the 
appropriate  place  on  these  occasions — she  was  evi 
dently  stung  by  a  bee.  My  brother  was  at  the  time 
regaling  himself  in  a  near-by  blackberry  thicket.  He 
looked  up  at  an  unusual  sound.  Without  warning, 
Dolly  had  leaped  to  action  and  was  tearing  around 
the  orchard  dragging  the  phaeton  behind  her.  She 


ROADS  OF  MORNING 51 

wrecked  the  top  on  a  low  hanging  branch,  then  hit 
another  tree,  severing  thereby  all  connection  between 
herself  and  the  phaeton,  and  at  last  galloped  down 
the  lane  to  the  farm  house,  with  the  broken  shafts 
and  harness  dangling  behind  her.  Kipling's  dun 
"with  the  mouth  of  a  bell  and  the  heart  of  Hell  and 
the  head  of  the  gallows-tree,"  could -hardly  have 
shown  more  spirit.  It  was  as  though  one  brief  minute 
of  a  glorious  youth  had  come  back  to  her.  It  was  a 
last  spurting  of  an  old  flame  before  it  sunk  to  ash. 

My  grandfather  gave  his  leisure  to  his  grand 
children.  He  carved  for  us  with  his  knife,  with  an 
especial  knack  for  willow  whistles.  He  showed  us 
the  colors  that  lay  upon  the  world  when  we  looked 
at  it  through  one  of  the  glass  pendants  of  the  parlor 
chandelier.  He  sat  by  us  when  we  played  duck-on- 
the-rock.  He  helped  us  with  our  kites  and  gave  a 
superintendence  to  our  toys.  It  is  true  that  he  was 
superficial  with  tin-tags  and  did  not  know  the  differ 
ence  in  value  between  a  Steam  Engine  tag — the 
rarest  of  them  all — and  a  common  Climax,  but  we 
forgave  him  as  one  forgives  a  friend  who  is  ignorant 
of  Persian  pottery.  He  employed  us  as  gardeners 
and  put  a  bounty  on  weeds.  We  watered  the  lawn 
together,  turn  by  turn.  When  I  was  no  more  than 
four  years  old,  he  taught  us  to  play  casino  with 
him — and  afterwards  bezique.  How  he  cried  out  if 
he  got  a  royal  sequence!  With  what  excitement  he 
announced  a  double  bezique !  Or  if  one  of  us  seemed 
about  to  score  and  lacked  but  a  single  card,  how 


6%  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

intently  he  contended  for  the  last  few  tricks  to 
thwart  our  declaration!  And  if  we  got  it  despite  his 
lead  of  aces,  how  gravely  he  squinted  on  the  cards 
against  deception,  with  his  glasses  forward  on  his 
nose! 

When  he  took  his  afternoon  nap  and  lay  upon  his 
back  on  the  sofa  in  the  sitting-room,  we  made  paper 
pin- wheels  to  see  whether  his  breath  would  stir  them. 
This  trick  having  come  to  his  notice  by  a  sudden 
awakening,  he  sometimes  thereafter  played  to  be 
asleep  and  snored  in  such  a  mighty  gust  that  the 
wheels  spun.  He  was  like  a  Dutch  tempest  against 
a  windmill. 

If  a  Dime  Museum  came  to  town  we  made  an 
afternoon  of  it.  He  took  us  to  all  the  circuses  and 
gave  us  our  choice  of  side-shows.  We  walked  up  and 
down  before  the  stretches  of  painted  canvas,  bal 
ancing  in  our  desire  a  sword-swallower  against  an 
Indian  Princess.  Most  of  the  fat  women  and  all  the 
dwarfs  that  I  have  known  came  to  my  acquaintance 
when  in  company  with  my  grandfather.  As  a  young 
man,  it  was  said,  he  once  ran  away  from  home  to  join 
a  circus  as  an  acrobat,  having  acquired  the  trick  of 
leaping  upon  a  running  horse.  I  fancy  that  his 
knack  of  throwing  us  to  his  shoulder  by  a  double 
somersault  was  a  recollection  of  his  early  days.  You 
may  imagine  with  what  awe  we  looked  on  him  even 
though  he  now  went  on  crutches.  He  was  the 
epitome  of  adventure,  the  very  salt  of  excitement. 
It  was  better  having  him  than  a  pirate  in  the  house. 


ROADS  OF  MORNING 53 

When  the  circus  had  gone  and  life  was  drab,  he  was 
our  tutor  in  the  art  of  turning  cart-wheels  and  making 
hand-stands  against  the  door. 

And  once,  when  we  were  away  from  him,  he  walked 
all  morning  about  the  garden  and  in  his  loneliness  he 
gathered  into  piles  the  pebbles  that  we  had  dropped. 

I  was  too  young  to  know  my  grandfather  in  his 
active  days  when  he  was  prominent  in  public  matters. 
His  broader  abilities  are  known  to  others.  But 
though  more  than  twenty  years  have  passed  since  his 
death,  I  remember  his  tone  of  voice,  his  walk,  his  way 
of  handling  a  crutch,  all  his  tricks  of  speech  and 
conduct  as  though  he  had  just  left  the  room.  And 
I  can  think  of  nothing  more  beautiful  than  that  a 
useful  man  who  has  faced  the  world  for  seventy  years 
and  has  done  his  part,  should  come  back  in  his  old 
age  to  the  nursery  and  be  the  playfellow  of  his 
grandchildren. 

But  the  best  holiday  was  a  trip  to  the  farm. 

This  farm — to  which  in  our  slow  trot  we  have  been 
so  long  a  time  in  coming — lay  for  a  mile  on  the  upper 
land,  and  its  grain  fields  and  pastures  looked  down 
into  the  valley.  The  buildings,  however,  were  set 
close  to  the  road  and  fixed  their  interest  on  such 
occasional  wagons  as  creaked  by.  A  Switzer  occupied 
the  farm,  who  owned,  in  addition  to  the  more  imme 
diate  members  of  his  family,  a  cuckoo  clock  whose 
weights  hung  on  long  cords  which  by  Saturday  night 
reached  almost  to  the  floor.  When  I  have  sat  at  his 
table,  I  have  neglected  cheese  and  the  lesser  foods, 


54 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

when  the  hour  came  near,  in  order  not  to  miss  the 
cuckoo's  popping  out.  And  in  the  duller  spaces, 
when  the  door  was  shut,  I  have  fancied  it  sitting  in 
the  dark  and  counting  the  minutes  to  itself. 

The  Switzer's  specialty  was  the  making  of  a  kind 
of  rubber  cheese  which  one  could  learn  to  like  in  time. 
Of  the  processes  of  its  composition,  I  can  remember 
nothing  except  that  when  it  was  in  the  great  press 
the  whey  ran  from  its  sides,  but  this  may  be  common 
to  all  cheeses.  I  was  once  given  a  cup  of  this  whey 
to  drink  and  I  brightened,  for  until  it  was  in  my 
mouth,  I  thought  it  was  buttermilk.  Beyond  was  the 
spring-house  with  cans  of  milk  set  in  the  cool  water 
and  with  a  trickling  sound  beneath  the  boards.  From 
the  spring-house  there  started  those  mysterious  cow- 
paths  that  led  down  into  the  great  gorge  that  cut 
the  farm.  Here  were  places  so  deep  that  only  a  bit 
of  the  sky  showed  and  here  the  stones  were  damp. 
It  was  a  place  that  seemed  to  lie  nearer  to  the  con 
fusion  when  the  world  was  made,  and  rocks  lay  piled 
as  though  a  first  purpose  had  been  broken  off.  And 
to  follow  a  cow-path,  regardless  of  where  it  led,  was, 
in  those  days,  the  essence  of  hazard;  though  all  the 
while  from  the  pastures  up  above  there  came  the  flat 
safe  tinkling  of  the  bells. 

The  apple  orchard — where  Dolly  was  stung  by  the 
bee — was  set  on  a  fine  breezy  place  at  the  brow  of  the 
hill  with  the  valley  in  full  sight.  The  trees  themselves 
were  old  and  decayed,  but  they  were  gnarled  and 
crotched  for  easy  climbing.  And  the  apples — in 


ROADS  OF  MORNING  55 

particular  a  russet — mounted  to  a  delicacy.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  valley,  a  half  mile  off  as  a  bird  would 
fly,  were  the  buildings  of  a  convent,  and  if  you  waited 
you  might  hear  the  twilight  bell.  To  this  day  all 
distant  bells  come  to  my  ears  with  a  pleasing  softness, 
as  though  they  had  been  cast  in  a  quieter  world. 
Stone  arrow-heads  were  found  in  a  near-by  field  as 
often  as  the  farmer  turned  up  the  soil  in  plowing. 
And  because  of  this,  a  long  finger  of  land  that  put 
off  to  the  valley,  was  called  Indian  Point.  Here, 
with  an  arm  for  pillow,  one  might  lie  for  a  long  hour 
on  a  sunny  morning  and  watch  the  shadows  of  clouds 
move  across  the  lowland.  A  rooster  crows  somewhere 
far  off — surely  of  all  sounds  the  drowsiest.  A  horse 
in  a  field  below  lifts  up  its  head  and  neighs.  The 
leaves  practice  a  sleepy  tune.  If  one  has  the  fortune 
to  keep  awake,  here  he  may  lie  and  think  the  thoughts 
that  are  born  of  sun  and  wind. 

And  now,  although  it  is  not  yet  noon,  hunger  rages 
in  us.  The  pancakes,  the  syrup,  the  toast  and  the 
other  incidents  of  breakfast  have  disappeared  the  way 
the  rabbit  vanishes  when  the  magician  waves  his 
hand.  The  horrid  Polyphemus  did  not  so  crave  his 
food.  And  as  yet  there  is  no  comforting  sniff  from 
the  kitchen.  Scrubbing  and  other  secular  matters 
engage  the  farmer's  wife.  There  is  as  yet  not  a 
faintest  gurgle  in  the  kettle. 

To  divert  ourselves,  we  climb  three  trees  and  fall 
out  of  one.  Is  twelve  o'clock  never  to  come?  Have 
Time  and  the  Hour  grown  stagnant  ?  We  eat  apples 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


and  throw  the  cores  at  the  pig  to  hear  him  grunt.  Is 
the  great  round  sun  stuck?  Have  the  days  of  Joshua 
come  again?  We  walk  a  rail  fence.  Is  it  not  yet 
noon?  Shrewsbury  clock  itself  —  reputed  by  scholars 
the  slowest  of  all  possible  clocks  —  could  not  so  hold 
off.  I  snag  myself  —  but  it  is  nothing  that  shows 
when  I  sit. 

Ah!  At  last!  My  grandfather  is  calling  from  the 
house.  We  run  back  and  find  that  the  lunch  is  ready 
and  is  laid  upon  a  table  with  a  red  oil-cloth  cover. 
We  apply  ourselves.  Silence.  .  .  . 

The  journey  home  started  about  five  o'clock. 
There  was  one  game  we  always  played.  Each  of  us, 
having  wisely  squinted  at  the  sky,  made  a  reckoning 
and  guessed  where  we  would  be  when  the  sun  set. 
My  grandfather  might  say  the  high  bridge.  I 
named  the  Sherman  House.  But  my  brother,  being 
precise,  judged  it  to  a  fraction  of  a  telegraph  pole. 
Beyond  a  certain  turn  —  did  we  remember?  —  well,  it 
would  be  exactly  sixteen  telegraph  .poles  further  on. 
What  an  excitement  there  was  when  the  sun's  lower 
rim  was  already  below  the  horizon  !  We  stood  on  our 
knees  and  looked  through  the  little  window  at  the 
back  of  the  phaeton.  With  what  suspicion  we  re 
garded  my  grandfather's  driving!  Or  if  Dolly 
lagged,  did  it  not  raise  a  thought  that  she,  too,  was 
in  the  plot  against  us?  The  sun  sets.  We  cry  out 
the  victor. 

The  sky  flames  with  color.  Then  deadens  in  the 
east.  The  dusk  is  falling.  The  roads  grow  dark. 


ROADS  OF  MORNING 


57 


Where  run  the  roads  of  night?  While  there  is  light, 
you  can  see  the  course  they  keep  across  the  country — 
the  dust  of  horses'  feet — a  bridge — a  vagrant  winding 
on  a  hill  beyond.  All  day  long  they  are  busy  with 
the  feet  of  men  and  women  and  children  shouting. 
Then  twilight  comes,  and  the  roads  lead  home  to 
supper  and  the  curling  smoke  above  the  roof.  But 
at  night  where  run  the  roads?  It's  dark  beyond  the 
candle's  flare — where  run  the  roads  of  night. 

My  brother  and  I  have  become  sleepy.  We  lop 
over  against  my  grandfather — 

We  awake  with  a  start.  There  is  a  gayly  lighted 
horse-car  jingling  beside  us.  The  street  lights  show 
us  into  harbor.  We  are  home  at  last. 


--  —  -  ^»f~ll^" •^"jjg^^^gl'rT^rCi  r^—  -_-.— r-LT-  ;    -    -     .  ------     ^^ 

iltie  Man  Of  Grub  Street  Gomes 

FK&  Garret 


*c^- 

HAVE  COME  to  live  this  winter 
in  New  York  City  and  by  good 
fortune  I  have  found  rooms  on  a 
pleasant  park.  This  park,  which 
is  but  one  block  in  extent,  is  so 
set  off  from  the  thoroughfares 
that  it  bears  chiefly  the  traffic 
that  is  proper  to  the  place  itself. 
Grocery  carts  jog  around  and 
throw  out  their  wares.  Laundry 
wagons  are  astir.  A  little  fat 
tailor  on  an  occasion  carries  in 
an  armful  of  newly  pressed  cloth 
ing  with  suspenders  hanging. 
Dogs  are  taken  out  to  walk  but  are  held  in  leash,  lest 
a  taste  of  liberty  spoil  them  for  an  indoor  life.  The 
center  of  the  park  is  laid  out  with  grass  and  trees 
and  pebbled  paths,  and  about  it  is  a  high  iron  fence. 
Each  house  has  a  key  to  the  enclosure.  Such  social 
infection,  therefore,  as  gets  inside  the  gates  is  of  our 
own  breeding.  In  the  sunny  hours  nurses  and 
children  air  themselves  in  this  grass  plot.  Here  a 
gayly  painted  wooden  velocipede  is  in  fashion.  At 
this  minute  there  are  several  pairs  of  fat  legs 
a-straddle  this  contrivance.  It  is  a  velocipede  as  it 
was  first  made,  without  pedals.  Beau  Brummel — 


THE  MAN  OF  GRUB  STREET 59 

for  the  velocipede  dates  back  to  him — may  have 
walked  forth  to  take  the  waters  at  Tunbridge  Wells 
on  a  vehicle  not  far  different,  but  built  to  his  greater 
stature.  There  is  also  a  trickle  of  drays  and  wagons 
across  the  park — a  mere  leakage  from  the  streets,  as 
though  the  near-by  traffic  in  the  pressure  had  burst 
its  pipes.  But  only  at  morning  and  night  when  the 
city  collects  or  discharges  its  people,  are  the  sidewalks 
filled.  Then  for  a  half  hour  the  nozzle  of  the  city 
plays  a  full  stream  on  us. 

The  park  seems  to  be  freer  and  more  natural  than 
the  streets  outside.  A  man  goes  by  gesticulating  as 
though  he  practiced  for  a  speech.  A  woman  adjusts 
her  stocking  on  the  coping  below  the  fence  with  the 
freedom  of  a  country  road.  A  street  sweeper, 
patched  to  his  office,  tunes  his  slow  work  to  fit  the 
quiet  surroundings.  Boys  skate  by  or  cut  swirls  upon 
the  pavement  in  the  privilege  of  a  playground. 

My  work — if  anything  so  pleasant  and  unforced 
can  carry  the  name — is  done  at  a  window  that  over 
looks  this  park.  Were  it  not  for  several  high  build 
ings  in  my  sight  I  might  fancy  that  I  lived  in  one 
of  the  older  squares  of  London.  There  is  a  look  of 
Thackeray  about  the  place  as  though  the  Osbornes 
might  be  my  neighbors.  A  fat  man  who  waddles  off 
his  steps  opposite,  if  he  would  submit  to  a  change  of 
coat,  might  be  Jos  Sedley  starting  for  his  club  to  eat 
his  chutney.  If  only  there  were  a  crest  above  my  bell- 
pull  I  might  even  expect  Becky  Sharp  in  for  tea. 
Or  occasionally  I  divert  myself  with  the  fancy  that 


60 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

I  am  of  a  still  older  day  and  that  I  have  walked  in 
from  Lichfield — I  choose  the  name  at  hazard — with 
a  tragedy  in  my  pocket,  to  try  my  fortune.  Were 
it  not  for  the  fashion  of  dress  in  the  park  below  and 
some  remnant  of  reason  in  myself,  I  could,  in  a 
winking  moment,  persuade  myself  that  my  room  is 
a  garret  and  my  pen  a  quill.  On  such  delusion,  before 
I  issued  on  the  street  to  seek  my  coffee-house,  I  would 
adjust  my  wig  and  dust  myself  of  snuff. 

But  for  my  exercise  and  recreation — which  for  a 
man  of  Grub  Street  is  necessary  in  the  early  hours 
of  afternoon  when  the  morning  fires  have  fallen — I 
go  outside  the  park.  I  have  a  wide  choice  for  my 
wanderings.  I  may  go  into  the  district  to  the  east 
and  watch  the  children  play  against  the  curb.  If 
they  pitch  pennies  on  the  walk  I  am  careful  to  go 
about,  for  fear  that  I  distract  the  throw.  Or  if  the 
stones  are  marked  for  hop-scotch,  I  squeeze  along  the 
wall.  It  is  my  intention — from  which  as  yet  my 
diffidence  withholds  me — to  present  to  the  winner  of 
one  of  these  contests  a  red  apple  which  I  shall  select 
at  a  corner  stand.  Or  an  ice  wagon  pauses  in  its 
round,  and  while  the  man  is  gone  there  is  a  pleasant 
thieving  of  bits  of  ice.  Each  dirty  cheek  is  stuffed 
as  though  a  plague  of  mumps  had  fallen  on  the  street. 
Or  there  may  be  a  game  of  baseball — a  scampering 
on  the  bases,  a  home-run  down  the  gutter — to  engage 
me  for  an  inning.  Or  shinny  grips  the  street.  But 
if  a  street  organ  comes — not  a  mournful  one-legged 
box  eked  out  with  a  monkey,  but  a  big  machine  with 


THE  MAN  OF  GRUB  STREET  61 

an  extra  man  to  pull — the  children  leave  their  games. 
It  was  but  the  other  day  that  I  saw  six  of  them 
together  dancing  on  the  pavement  to  the  music,  with 
skirts  and  pigtails  flying.  There  was  such  gladness 
in  their  faces  that  the  musician,  although  he  already 
had  his  nickel,  gave  them  an  extra  tune.  It  was  of 
such  persuasive  gayety  that  the  number  of  dancers 
at  once  went  up  to  ten  and  others  wiggled  to  the 
rhythm.  And  for  myself,  although  I  am  past  my 
sportive  days,  the  sound  of  a  street  organ,  if  any, 
would  inflame  me  to  a  fox-trot.  Even  a  surly  tune — 
if  the  handle  be  quickened — comes  from  the  box  with 
a  brisk  seduction.  If  a  dirge  once  got  inside,  it  would 
fret  until  it  came  out  a  dancing  measure. 

In  this  part  of  town,  on  the  better  streets,  I  some 
times  study  the  fashions  as  I  see  them  in  the  shops 
and  I  compare  them  with  those  of  uptown  stores. 
Nor  is  there  the  difference  one  might  suppose.  The 
small  round  muff  that  sprang  up  this  winter  in  the 
smarter  shops  won  by  only  a  week  over  the  cheaper 
stores.  Tan  gaiters  ran  a  pretty  race.  And  I  am 
now  witness  to  a  dead  heat  in  a  certain  kind  of  fluffy 
rosebud  dress.  The  fabrics  are  probably  different, 
but  no  matter  how  you  deny  it,  they  are  cut  to  a 
common  pattern. 

In  a  poorer  part  of  the  city  still  nearer  to  the  East 
River,  where  smells  of  garlic  and  worse  issue  from 
cellarways,  I  came  recently  on  a  considerable  park. 
It  was  supplied  with  swings  and  teeters  and  drew 
children  on  its  four  fronts.  Of  a  consequence  the 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


children  of  many  races  played  together.  I  caught 
a  Yiddish  answer  to  an  Italian  question.  I  fancy  that 
a  child  here  could  go  forth  at  breakfast  wholly  a 
Hungarian  and  come  home  with  a  smack  of  Russian 
or  Armenian  added.  The  general  games  that  merged 
the  smaller  groups,  aided  in  the  fusion.  If  this  park 
is  not  already  named  —  a  small  chance,  for  it  shows 
the  marks  of  age  —  it  might  properly  be  called  The 
Park  of  the  Thirty  Nations. 

Or  my  inclination  may  take  me  to  the  lower  city. 
Like  a  poor  starveling  I  wander  in  the  haunts  of 
wealth  where  the  buildings  are  piled  to  forty  stories, 
and  I  spin  out  the  ciphers  in  my  brain  in  an  endeavor 
to  compute  the  amount  that  is  laid  up  inside.  Also, 
lest  I  become  discontented  with  my  poverty,  I  note 
the  strain  and  worry  of  the  faces  that  I  meet.  There 
is  a  story  of  Tolstoi  in  which  a  man  is  whispered  by 
his  god  that  he  may  possess  such  land  as  he  can  circle 
in  a  day.  Until  that  time  he  had  been  living  on  a 
fertile  slope  of  sun  and  shadow,  with  fields  ample  for 
his  needs.  But  when  the  whisper  came,  at  a  flash,  he 
pelted  off  across  the  hills.  He  ran  all  morning,  but 
as  the  day  advanced  his  sordid  ambition  broadened 
and  he  turned  his  course  into  a  wider  and  still  wider 
circle.  Here  a  pleasant  valley  tempted  him  and  he 
bent  his  path  to  bring  it  inside  his  mark.  Here  a 
fruitful  upland  led  him  off.  As  the  day  wore  on  he 
ran  with  a  greater  fierceness,  because  he  knew  he 
would  lose  everything  if  he  did  not  reach  his  starting 
place  before  the  sun  went  down.  The  sun  was  coming 


THE  MAN  OF  GRUB  STREET 


near  the  rim  of  earth  when  he  toiled  up  the  last  hill. 
His  feet  were  cut  by  stones,  his  face  pinched  with 
agony.  He  staggered  toward  the  goal  and  fell  across 
it  while  as  yet  there  was  a  glint  of  light.  But  his 
effort  burst  his  heart.  Does  the  analogy  hold  on  these 
narrow  streets?  To  a  few  who  sit  in  an  inner  office, 
Mammon  has  made  a  promise  of  wealth  and  domi 
nation.  These  few  run  breathless  to  gain  a  mountain. 
But  what  have  the  gods  whispered  to  the  ten  thousand 
who  sit  in  the  outer  office,  that  they  bend  and  blink 
upon  their  ledgers?  Have  the  gods  whispered  to 
them  the  promise  of  great  wealth  ?  Alas,  before  them 
there  lies  only  the  dust  and  heat  of  a  level  road,  yet 
they  too  are  broken  at  the  sunset. 

Less  oppressive  are  the  streets  where  commerce  is 
more  apparent.  Here,  unless  you  would  be  smirched, 
it  is  necessary  to  walk  fast  and  hold  your  coat-tails  in. 
Packing  cases  are  going  down  slides.  Bales  are 
coming  up  in  hoists.  Barrels  are  rolling  out  of 
wagons.  Crates  are  being  lifted  in.  Is  the  exchange 
never  to  stop?  Is  no  warehouse  satisfied  with  what 
it  has?  English,  which  until  now  you  judged  a  soft 
concordant  language,  shows  here  its  range  and 
mastery  of  epithet.  And  all  about,  moving  and 
jostling  the  boxes,  are  men  with  hooks.  One  might 
think  that  in  a  former  day  Captain  Cuttle  had  settled 
here  to  live  and  that  his  numerous  progeny  had  kept 
the  place. 

Often  I  ride  on  a  bus  top  like  a  maharajah  on  an 
elephant,  up  near  the  tusks,  as  it  were,  where  the  view 


64 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

is  unbroken.  I  plan  this  trip  so  that  I  move  counter 
to  the  procession  that  goes  uptown  in  the  late  after 
noon.  Is  there  a  scene  like  it  in  the  world?  The 
boulevards  of  Paris  in  times  of  peace  are  hardly  so 
gay.  Fifth  Avenue  is  blocked  with  motor  cars. 
Fashion  has  gone  forth  to  select  a  feather.  A  ringlet 
has  gone  awry  and  must  be  mended.  The  Pome 
ranian's  health  is  served  by  sunlight.  The  Spitz 
must  have  an  airing.  Fashion  has  wagged  its  head 
upon  a  Chinese  vase — has  indeed  squinted  at  it 
through  a  lorgnette  against  a  fleck — and  now  lolls 
home  to  dinner.  Or  style  has  veered  an  inch,  and  it 
has  been  a  day  of  fitting.  At  restaurant  windows  one 
may  see  the  feeding  of  the  over-fed.  Men  sit  in  club 
windows  and  still  wear  their  silk  hats  as  though  there 
was  no  glass  between  them  and  the  windy  world. 
Footmen  in  boots  and  breeches  sit  as  stiffly  as  though 
they  were  toys  grown  large  and  had  metal  spikes 
below  to  hold  them  to  their  boxes.  They  look  like 
the  iron  firemen  that  ride  on  nursery  fire-engines. 
For  all  these  sights  the  bus  top  is  the  best  place. 

And  although  we  sit  on  a  modest  roof,  the  shop 
keepers  cater  to  us.  For  in  many  of  the  stores,  is 
there  not  an  upper  tier  of  windows  for  our  use?  The 
commodities  of  this  second  story  are  quite  as  fine  as 
those  below.  And  the  waxen  beauties  who  display 
the  frocks  greet  us  in  true  democracy  with  as  sweet 
a  simper. 

My  friend  G while  riding  recently  on  a  bus 

top  met  with  an  experience  for  which  he  still  blushes. 


THE  MAN  OF  GRUB  STREET 


There  was  a  young  woman  sitting  directly  in  front 
of  him,  and  when  he  came  to  leave,  a  sudden  lurch 
threw  him  against  her.  When  he  recovered  his 
footing,  which  was  a  business  of  some  difficulty,  for 
the  bus  pitched  upon  a  broken  pavement,  what  was 
his  chagrin  to  find  that  a  front  button  of  his  coat  had 
hooked  in  her  back  hair!  Luckily  G  --  was  not 
seized  with  a  panic.  Rather,  he  labored  cautiously  — 
but  without  result.  Nor  could  she  help  in  the  dis 
entanglement.  Their  embarrassment  might  have 
been  indefinitely  prolonged  —  indeed,  G  -  was 
several  blocks  already  down  the  street  —  when  he 
bethought  him  of  his  knife  and  so  cut  off  the  button. 
As  he  pleasantly  expressed  it  to  the  young  woman, 
he  would  give  her  the  choice  of  the  button  or  the  coat 
entire. 

Reader,  are  you  inclined  toward  ferry  boats?  I 
cannot  include  those  persons  who  journey  on  them 
night  and  morning  perfunctorily.  These  persons 
keep  their  noses  in  their  papers  or  sit  snugly  in  the 
cabin.  If  the  market  is  up,  they  can  hardly  be 
conscious  even  that  they  are  crossing  a  river.  Nor 
do  I  entirely  blame  them.  If  one  kept  shop  on  a 
breezy  tip  of  the  Delectable  Mountains  with  all  the 
regions  of  the  world  laid  out  below,  he  could  not  be 
expected  to  climb  up  for  the  hundredth  time  with  a 
first  exhilaration,  or  to  swing  his  alpenstock  as 
though  he  were  on  a  rare  holiday.  If  one  had 
business  across  the  Styx  too  often  —  although  the 
scenery  on  its  banks  is  reputed  to  be  unusual  —  he 


66_ PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

might  in  time  sit  below  and  take  to  yawning. 
Father  Charon  might  have  to  jog  his  shoulder  to 
rouse  him  when  the  boat  came  between  the  further 
piers. 

But  are  you  one  of  those  persons  who,  not  being 
under  a  daily  compulsion,  rides  upon  a  ferry  boat  for 
the  love  of  the  trip?  Being  in  this  class  myself,  I 
laid  my  case  the  other  night  before  the  gateman,  and 
asked  his  advice  regarding  routes.  He  at  once 
entered  sympathetically  into  my  distemper  and  gave 
me  a  plan  whereby  with  but  a  single  change  of  piers 
I  might  at  an  expense  of  fourteen  cents  cross  the 
river  four  times  at  different  angles. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  day  and  a  light  fog  rested  on 
the  water.  Nothing  was  entirely  lost,  yet  a  gray 
mystery  wrapped  the  ships  and  buildings.  If  New 
Jersey  still  existed  it  was  dim  and  shadowy  as  though 
its  real  life  had  gone  and  but  a  ghost  remained. 
Ferry  boats  were  lighted  in  defiance  of  the  murk, 
and  darted  here  and  there  at  reckless  angles.  An 
ocean  liner  was  putting  out,  and  several  tugs  had 
rammed  their  noses  against  her  sides.  There  is 
something  engaging  about  a  tug.  It  snorts  with 
eagerness.  It  kicks  and  splashes.  It  bursts  itself  to 
lend  a  hand.  And  how  it  butts  with  its  nose!  Surely 
its  forward  cartilages  are  of  triple  strength,  else  in 
its  zest  it  would  jam  its  nasal  passages. 

Presently  we  came  opposite  lower  New  York. 
Although  the  fog  concealed  the  outlines  of  the 
buildings,  their  lights  showed  through.  This  first 


THE  MAN  OF  GRUB  STREET 


67 


hour  of  dark  is  best,  before  the  day's  work  is  done 
and  while  as  yet  all  of  the  windows  are  lighted.  The 
Woolworth  Tower  was  suffused  in  a  soft  and  shadowy 
light.  The  other  buildings  showed  like  mountains  of 
magic  pin-pricks.  It  was  as  though  all  the  constel 
lations  of  heaven  on  a  general  bidding  had  met  for 
conference. 

The  man  of  Grub   Street,  having  by  this  time 
somewhat  dispelled  the  fumes  of  dullness  from  his 
head,  descends  from  his  ferry  boat  and  walks  to  his 
quiet  park.     There  is  a  dull  roar  from  the  ele 
vated  railway  on  Third  Avenue  where  the  last  of 
the  day's  crowd  goes  home.  The  sidewalks  are  be 
coming  empty.    There  is  a  sheen  of  water 
on  the  pavement.     In  the  winter  murk 
there  is  a  look  of  Thackeray  about  the 
place  as  though  the  Sedleys  or  the  Os- 
bornes  might  be  his  neighbors. 
If  there  were  a  crest  above  his 
bell-pull  he  might  even  expect 
Becky  Sharp  in  for  tea. 
J 


HEN  THE  sun  set  last 
night  it  was  still  winter. 
The  persons  who  passed 
northward  in  the  dusk  from  the  city's  tumult  thrust 
their  hands  deep  into  their  pockets  and  walked  to  a 
sharp  measure.  But  a  change  came  in  the  night.  The 
north  wind  fell  off  and  a  breeze  blew  up  from  the 
south.  Such  stars  as  were  abroad  at  dawn  left  off 
their  shrill  winter  piping — if  it  be  true  that  stars 
really  sing  in  their  courses — and  pitched  their  voices 
to  April  tunes.  One  star  in  particular  that  hung  low 
in  the  west  until  the  day  was  up,  knew  surely  that 
the  Spring  had  come  and  sang  in  concert  with  the 
earliest  birds.  There  is  a  dull  belief  that  these  early 
birds  shake  off  their  sleep  to  get  the  worm.  Rather, 
they  come  forth  at  this  hour  to  cock  their  ears  upon 
the  general  heavens  for  such  new  tunes  as  the  unf aded 
stars  still  sing.  If  an  ear  is  turned  down  to  the 
rummage  of  worms  in  the  earth — for  to  the  super 
ficial,  so  does  the  attitude  attest — it  is  only  that  the 
other  ear  may  be  turned  upward  to  catch  the  celestial 
harmonies ;  for  birds  know  that  if  there  is  an  untried 
melody  in  heaven  it  will  sound  first  across  the  clear 
pastures  of  the  dawn.  All  the  chirping  and  whistling 
from  the  fields  and  trees  are  then  but  the  practice  of 


NOW  THAT  SPRING  IS  HERE 


the  hour.    When  the  meadowlark  sings  on  a  fence- 
rail  she  but  cons  her  lesson  from  the  stars. 

It  is  on  such  a  bright  Spring  morning  that  the 
housewife,  duster  in  hand,  throws  open  her  parlor 
window  and  looks  upon  the  street.  A  pleasant  park 
is  below,  of  the  size  of  a  city  square,  and  already  it 
stirs  with  the  day's  activity.  The  housewife  beats  her 
cloth  upon  the  sill  and  as  the  dust  flies  off,  she  hears 
the  cries  and  noises  of  the  place.  In  a  clear  tenor  she 
is  admonished  that  there  is  an  expert  hereabouts  to 
grind  her  knives.  A  swarthy  baritone  on  a  wagon 
lifts  up  his  voice  in  praise  of  radishes  and  carrots. 
His  eye  roves  along  the  windows.  The  crook  of  a 
hungry  finger  will  bring  him  to  a  stand.  Or  a  junk 
man  is  below  upon  his  business.  Yesterday  the  bells 
upon  his  cart  would  have  sounded  sour,  but  this 
morning  they  rattle  agreeably,  as  though  a  brisker 
cow  than  common,  springtime  in  her  hoofs,  were 
jangling  to  her  pasture.  At  the  sound  —  if  you  are 
of  country  training  —  you  see  yourself,  somewhat 
misty  through  the  years,  barefoot  in  a  grassy  lane, 
with  stick  in  hand,  urging  the  gentle  beast.  There 
is  a  subtle  persuasion  in  the  junkman's  call.  In  these 
tones  did  the  magician,  bawling  for  old  lamps,  beguile 
Aladdin.  If  there  were  this  morning  in  my  lodging 
an  unrubbed  lamp,  I  would  toss  it  from  the 
window  for  such  magic  as  he  might  extract  from  it. 
And  if  a  fair  Princess  should  be  missing  at  the  noon 
and  her  palace  be  skipped  from  sight,  it  will  follow 
on  the  rubbing  of  it. 


70_ PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

The  call  of  red  cherries  in  the  park — as  you  might 
guess  from  its  Italian  source — is  set  to  an  amorous 
tune.  What  lady,  smocked  in  morning  cambric, 
would  not  be  wooed  by  such  a  voice?  The  gay  fellow 
tempts  her  to  a  purchase.  It  is  but  a  decent  caution — 
now  that  Spring  is  here — that  the  rascal  does  not  call 
his  wares  by  moonlight.  As  for  early  peas  this 
morning,  it  is  Pan  himself  who  peddles  them — 
disguised  and  smirched  lest  he  be  caught  in  the 
deception — Pan  who  stamps  his  foot  and  shakes  the 
thicket — whose  habit  is  to  sing  with  reedy  voice  of  the 
green  willows  that  dip  in  sunny  waters.  Although  he 
now  clatters  his  tins  and  baskets  and  cries  out  like  a 
merchant,  his  thoughts  run  to  the  black  earth  and  the 
shady  hollows  and  the  sound  of  little  streams. 

I  have  wondered  as  I  have  observed  the  housewives 
lingering  at  their  windows — for  my  window  also  looks 
upon  the  park — I  have  wondered  that  these  melodious 
street  cries  are  not  used  generally  for  calling  the  wares 
of  wider  sale.  If  a  radish  can  be  so  proclaimed, 
there  might  be  a  lilt  devised  in  praise  of  other  pleasing 
merceries — a  tripping  pizzicato  for  laces  and  frip 
pery — a  brave  trumpeting  for  some  newest  cereal. 
And  should  not  the  latest  book — if  it  be  a  tale  of  love, 
for  these  I  am  told  are  best  offered  to  the  public  in 
the  Spring  (sad  tales  are  best  for  winter) — should 
not  a  tale  of  love  be  heralded  through  the  city  by  the 
singing  of  a  ballad,  with  a  melting  tenor  in  the  part? 
In  old  days  a  gaudy  rogue  cried  out  upon  the  broader 
streets  that  jugglers  had  stretched  their  rope  in  the 


NOW  THAT  SPRING  IS  HERE 71 

market-place,  but  when  the  bears  came  to  town,  the 
news  was  piped  even  to  the  narrowest  lanes  that 
house-folk  might  bring  their  pennies. 

With  my  thoughts  set  on  the  Spring  I  chanced  to 
walk  recently  where  the  theatres  are  thickest.  It 
was  on  a  Saturday  afternoon  and  the  walk  was 
crowded  with  amusement  seekers.  Presently  in  the 
press  I  observed  a  queer  old  fellow  carrying  on  his 
back  a  monstrous  pack  of  umbrellas.  He  rang  a  bell 
monotonously  and  professed  himself  a  mender  of 
umbrellas.  He  can  hardly  have  expected  to  find  a 
customer,  in  the  crowd.  Even  a  blinking  eye — and 
these  street  merchants  are  shrewd  in  these  matters — 
must  have  told  him  that  in  all  this  hurrying  mass  of 
people,  the  thoughts  of  no  one  ran  toward  umbrellas. 
Rather,  I  think  that  he  was  taking  an  hour  from  the 
routine  of  the  day.  He  had  trod  the  profitable  side 
streets  until  truantry  had  taken  him.  But  he  still 
made  a  pretext  of  working  at  his  job  and  called  his 
wares  to  ease  his  conscience  from  idleness.  Once 
when  an  unusually  bright  beam  of  sunlight  fell  from 
between  the  clouds,  he  tilted  up  his  hat  to  get  the 
warmth  and  I  thought  him  guilty  of  a  skip  and 
syncopation  in  the  ringing  of  his  bell,  as  if  he  too 
twitched  pleasantly  with  the  Spring  and  his  old  sap 
was  stirred. 

I  like  these  persons  who  ply  their  trades  upon  the 
sidewalk.  My  hatter — the  fellow  who  cleans  mv 
straw  hat  each  Spring — is  a  partner  of  a  bootblack. 
Over  his  head  as  he  putters  with  his  soap  and  brushes, 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


there  hangs  a  rusty  sign  proclaiming  that  he  is  famous 
for  his  cleaning  all  round  the  world.  He  is  so  modest 
in  his  looks  that  I  have  wondered  whether  he  really 
can  read  the  sign.  Or  perhaps  like  a  true  merchant, 
he  is  not  squeamish  at  the  praise.  As  I  have  not 
previously  been  aware  that  any  of  his  profession  ever 
came  to  general  fame  except  the  Mad  Hatter  of 
Wonderland,  I  have  squinted  sharply  at  him  to  see 
if  by  chance  it  might  be  he,  but  there  are  no  marks 
even  of  a  distant  kinship.  He  does,  however,  bring 
my  hat  to  a  marvellous  whiteness  and  it  may  be  true 
that  he  has  really  tended  heads  that  are  now  gone 
beyond  Constantinople. 

Bootblacks  have  a  sense  of  rhythm  unparalleled. 
Of  this  the  long  rag  is  their  instrument.  They  draw 
it  once  or  twice  across  the  shoe  to  set  the  key  and  then 
they  go  into  a  swift  and  pattering  melody.  If  there 
is  an.  unusual  genius  in  the  bootblack  —  some  remnant 
of  ancient  Greece  —  he  plays  such  a  lively  tune  that 
one's  shoulders  jig  to  it.  If  there  were  a  dryad  or 
other  such  nimble  creature  on  the  street,  she  would 
come  leaping  as  though  Orpheus  strummed  a  tune, 
but  the  dance  is  too  fast  for  our  languid  northern  feet. 

Nowhere  are  apples  redder  than  on  a  cart.  Our 
hearts  go  out  to  Adam  in  the  hour  of  his  temptation. 
I  know  one  lady  of  otherwise  careful  appetite  who 
even  leans  toward  dates  if  she  may  buy  them  from 
a  cart.  "Those  dear  dirty  dates,"  she  calls  them,  but 
I  cannot  share  her  liking  for  them.  Although  the 
cart  is  a  beguiling  market,  dates  so  bought  are  too 


NOW  THAT  SPRING  IS  HERE 


73 


dusty  to  be  eaten.  They  rank  with  the  apple- John. 
The  apple- John  is  that  mysterious  leathery  fruit,  sold 
more  often  from  a  stand  than  from  a  cart,  which  leans 
at  the  rear  of  the  shelf  against  the  peppermint  jars. 
For  myself,  although  I  do  not  eat  apple- Johns,  I  like 
to  look  at  them.  They  are  so  shrivelled  and  so  flat, 
as  though  a  banana  had  caught  a  consumption.  Or 
rather,  in  the  older  world  was  there  not  a  custom  at 
a  death  of  sending  fruits  to  support  the  lonesome 
journey?  If  so,  the  apple- John  came  untasted  to  the 
end.  Indeed,  there  is  a  look  of  old  Egypt  about  the 
fruit.  Whether  my  fondness  for  gazing  at  apple- 
Johns  springs  from  a  distant  occasion  when  as  a  child 
I  once  bought  and  ate  one,  or  whether  it  arises  from 
the  fact  that  Falstaff  called  Prince  Hal  a  dried  apple- 
John,  is  an  unsolved  question,  but  I  like  to  linger 
before  a  particularly  shrivelled  one  and  wonder  what 
its  youth  was  like.  Perhaps  like  many  of  its  betters, 
it  remained  unheralded  and  unknown 
all  through  its  fresher  years  and  not 
until  the  coming  of  its  wrinkled  age 
was  it  at  last  put  up  to  the 
common  view.  The  apple- John 
sets  up  kinship  with  an  author. 


74  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

The  day  of  all  fools  is  wisely  put  in  April.  The 
jest  of  the  day  resides  in  the  success  with  which 
credulity  is  imposed  upon,  and  April  is  the  month  of 
easiest  credulity.  Let  bragging  travellers  come  in 
April  and  hold  us  with  tales  of  the  Anthropopagi ! 
If  their  heads  are  said  to  grow  beneath  their  shoulders, 
still  we  will  turn  a  credent  ear.  Indeed,  it  is  all  but 
sure  that  Baron  Munchausen  came  back  from  his 
travels  in  the  Spring.  When  else  could  he  have  got 
an  ear?  What  man  can  look  upon  the  wonders  of  the 
returning  year — the  first  blue  sides,  the  soft  rains, 
the  tender  sproutings  of  green  stalks  without  feeling 
that  there  is  nothing  beyond  belief  ?  If  such  miracles 
can  happen  before  his  eyes,  shall  not  the  extreme 
range  even  of  travel  or  metaphysics  be  allowed? 
What  man  who  has  smelled  the  first  fragrance  of  the 
earth,  has  heard  the  birds  on  their  northern  flight  and 
has  seen  an  April  brook  upon  its  course,  will  withhold 
his  credence  even  though  the  jest  be  plain? 

I  beg,  therefore,  that  when  you  walk  upon  the  street 
on  the  next  day  of  April  fool,  that  you  yield  to  the 
occasion.  If  an  urchin  points  his  finger  at  your  hat, 
humor  him  by  removing  it!  Look  sharply  at  it  for 
a  supposed  defect!  His  glad  shout  will  be  your 
reward.  Or  if  you  are  begged  piteously  to  lift  a 
stand-pipe  wrapped  to  the  likeness  of  a  bundle,  even 
though  you  sniff  the  imposture,  seize  upon  it  with  a 
will!  It  is  thus,  beneath  these  April  skies,  that  you 
play  your  part  in  the  pageantry  that  marks  the  day. 


0  YOU  not  confess  yourself 
to  be  several  years  past  that 
time  of  greenest  youth  when 
burnt  cork  holds  its  greatest 
charm?  Although  not  fallen  to 
a  crippled  state,  are  you  not  now 
too  advanced  to  smudge  your 
upper  lip  and  stalk  agreeably  as  a 
villain?  Surely  you  can  no  longer 
frisk  lightly  in  a  comedy.  If  you 
should  wheeze  and  limp  in  an  old 
man's  part,  with  back  humped  in 
mimicry,  would  you  not  fear  that  it  bordered  on  the 
truth?  But  doubtless  there  was  a  time  when  you 
ranged  upon  these  heights — when  Kazrac  the  magi 
cian  was  not  too  heavy  for  your  art.  In  those  soaring 
days,  let  us  hope  that  you  played  the  villain  with  a 
swagger,  or  being  cast  in  a  softer  role,  that  you  won 
a  pink  and  fluffy  princess  before  the  play  was  done. 
Your  earliest  practice,  it  may  be,  was  in  rigging  the 
parlor  hangings  as  a  curtain  with  brown  string  from 
the  pantry  and  safety  pins.  Although  you  had  no 
show  to  offer,  you  said  "ding"  three  times — as  is 
the  ancient  custom  of  the  stage  when  the  actors  are 
ready — and  drew  them  wide  apart.  The  cat  was 
the  audience,  who  dozed  with  an  ear  twitching  toward 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


your  activity.  A  complaint  that  springs  up  in  youth 
and  is  known  as  "snuffles"  had  kept  you  out  of  school. 
It  had  gripped  you  hard  at  breakfast,  when  you  were 
sunk  in  fear  of  your  lessons,  but  had  abated  at  nine 
o'clock.  Whether  the  cure  came  with  a  proper 
healing  of  the  nasal  glands  or  followed  merely  on  the 
ringing  of  the  school  bell,  must  be  left  to  a  cool 
judgment. 

Your  theatre  filled  the  morning.  When  Annie 
came  on  her  quest  for  dust,  you  tooted  once  upon 
your  nose,  just  to  show  that  a  remnant  of  your 
infirmity  persisted,  then  put  your  golden  conva 
lescence  on  the  making  of  your  curtain. 

But  in  the  early  hours  of  afternoon  when  the 
children  are  once  more  upon  the  street,  you  regret 
your  illness.  Here  they  come  trooping  by  threes  and 
fours,  carrying  their  books  tied  up  in  straps.  One 
would  think  that  they  were  in  fear  lest  some  impish 
fact  might  get  outside  the  covers  to  spoil  the  after 
noon.  Until  the  morrow  let  two  and  two  think 
themselves  five  at  least!  And  let  Ohio  be  bounded 
as  it  will!  Some  few  children  skip  ropes,  or  step 
carefully  across  the  cracks  of  the  sidewalk  for  fear 
they  spoil  their  suppers.  Ah!  —  a  bat  goes  by  —  a 
glove  —  a  ball!  And  now  from  a  vacant  lot  there 
comes  the  clamor  of  choosing  sides.  Is  no  mention 
to  be  made  of  you  —  you,  "molasses  fingers"  —  the  star 
left  fielder  —  the  timely  batter?  What  would  you  not 
give  now  for  a  clean  bill  of  health?  You  rub  your 
offending  nose  upon  the  glass.  What  matters  it  with 


THE  FRIENDLY  GENII  77 

what  deep  rascality  in  black  mustachios  you  once 
strutted  upon  your  boards?  What  is  Hecuba  to  you? 

My  own  first  theatre  was  in  the  attic,  a  place  of 
squeaks  and  shadows  to  all  except  the  valiant.  In  it 
were  low,  dark  corners  where  the  night  crawled  in 
and  slept.  But  in  the  open  part  where  the  roof  was 
highest,  there  was  the  theatre.  Its  walls  were  made 
of  a  red  cambric  of  a  flowered  pattern  that  still  lingers 
with  me,  and  was  bought  with  a  clatter  of  pennies  on 
the  counter,  together  with  nickels  that  had  escaped 
my  extravagance  at  the  soda  fountain. 

A  cousin  and  I  were  joint  proprietors.  In  the 
making  of  it,  the  hammer  and  nails  were  mine  by 
right  of  sex,  while  she  stitched  in  womanish  fashion 
on  the  fabrics.  She  was  leading  woman  and  I  was 
either  the  hero  or  the  villain  as  fitted  to  my  mood. 
My  younger  cousin — although  we  scorned  her  for  her 
youth — was  admitted  to  the  slighter  parts.  She 
might  daub  herself  with  cork,  but  it  must  be  only 
when  we  were  done.  Nor  did  we  allow  her  to  carry 
the  paper  knife — shaped  like  a  dagger — which  figured 
hugely  in  our  plots.  If  we  gave  her  any  word  to 
speak,  it  was  as  taffy  to  keep  her  silent  about  some 
iniquity  that  we  had  worked  against  her.  In  general, 
we  judged  her  to  be  too  green  and  giddy  for  the 
heavy  parts.  At  the  most,  she  might  take  pins  at  the 
door — for  at  such  a  trifle  we  displayed  our  talents — 
or  play  upon  the  comb  as  orchestra  before  the  rising 
of  the  curtain. 


7S PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

The  usual  approach  to  this  theatre  was  the  kitchen 
door,  and  those  who  came  to  enjoy  the  drama  sniffed 
at  their  very  entrance  the  new-baked  bread.  A  pan 
of  cookies  was  set  upon  a  shelf  and  a  row  of  apples 
was  ranged  along  the  window  sill.  Of  the  ice-box 
around  the  corner,  not  a  word,  lest  hunger  lead  you 
off!  As  for  the  cook,  although  her  tongue  was  tart 
upon  a  just  occasion  and  although  she  shooed  the 
children  with  her  apron,  secretly  she  liked  to  have 
them  crowding  through  her  kitchen. 

Now  if  you,  reader — for  I  assume  you  to  be  one 
of  the  gathering  audience — were  of  the  kind  careful 
on  scrubbing  days  to  scrape  your  feet  upon  the  iron 
outside  and  to  cross  the  kitchen  on  the  unwashed 
parts,  then  it  is  likely  that  you  stood  in  the  good 
graces  of  the  cook.  Mark  your  reward!  As  you 
journeyed  upward,  you  munched  upon  a  cookie  and 
bit  scallops  in  its  edge.  Or  if  a  ravenous  haste  was 
in  you — as  commonly  comes  up  in  the  middle  after 
noon — you  waived  this  slower  method  and  crammed 
yourself  with  a  recklessness  that  bestrewed  the  pur 
lieus  of  your  mouth.  If  your  ears  lay  beyond  the 
muss,  the  stowage  was  deemed  decent  arid  in  order. 

Is  there  not  a  story  in  which  children  are  tracked 
by  an  ogre  through  the  perilous  wood  by  the  crumbs 
they  dropped?  Then  let  us  hope  there  is  no  ogre 
lurking  on  these  back  stairs,  for  the  trail  is  plain.  It 
would  be  near  the  top,  farthest  from  the  friendly 
kitchen,  that  the  attack  might  come,  for  there  the 
stairs  yielded  to  the  darkness  of  the  attic.  There  it 


THE  FRIENDLY  GENII  79 

was  best  to  look  sharp  and  to  turn  the  corners  wide. 
A  brave  whistling  kept  out  the  other  noises. 

It  was  after  Aladdin  had  been  in  town  that  the 
fires  burned  hottest  in  us.  My  grandfather  and  I 
went  together  to  the  matinee,  his  great  thumb  within 
my  fist.  We  were  frequent  companions.  Together 
we  had  sat  on  benches  in  the  park  and  poked  the 
gravel  into  patterns.  We  went  to  Dime  Museums. 
Although  his  eyes  had  looked  longer  on  the  world 
than  mine,  we  seemed  of  an  equal  age. 

The  theatre  was  empty  as  we  entered.  We  carried 
a  bag  of  candy  against  a  sudden  appetite — colt's  foot, 
a  penny  to  the  stick.  Here  and  there  ushers  were 
clapping  down  the  seats,  sounds  to  my  fancy  not 
unlike  the  first  corn  within  a  popper.  Somewhere 
aloft  there  must  have  been  a  roof,  else  the  day  would 
have  spied  in  on  us,  yet  it  was  lost  in  the  gloom.  It 
was  as  though  a  thrifty  owner  had  borrowed  the 
dusky  fabrics  of  the  night  to  make  his  cover.  The 
curtain  was  indistinct,  but  we  knew  it  to  be  the  Strat 
ford  Church  and  we  dimly  saw  its  spire. 

Now,  on  the  opening  of  a  door  to  the  upper  gallery, 
there  was  a  scampering  to  get  seats  in  front,  speed 
being  whetted  by  a  long  half  hour  of  waiting  on  the 
stairs.  Ghostly,  unbodied  heads,  like  the  luminous 
souls  of  lost  mountaineers — for  this  was  the  kind  of 
fiction,  got  out  of  the  Public  Library,  that  had  come 
last  beneath  my  thumb — ghostly  heads  looked  down 
upon  us  across  the  gallery  rail. 

And  now,  if  you  will  tip  back  your  head  like  a 


80  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

paper-hanger — whose  Adam's  apple  would  seem  to 
attest  a  life  of  sidereal  contemplation — you  will  see 
in  the  center  of  the  murk  above  you  a  single  point 
of  light.  It  is  the  spark  that  will  ignite  the  great 
gas  chandelier.  I  strain  my  neck  to  the  point  of 
breaking.  My  grandfather  strains  his  too,  for  it  is 
a  game  between  us  which  shall  announce  the  first 
spurting  of  the  light.  At  last!  We  cry  out  together. 
The  spark  catches  the  vent  next  to  it.  It  runs 
around  the  circle  of  glass  pendants.  The  whole 
blazes  up.  The  mountaineers  come  to  life.  They 
lean  forward  on  their  elbows. 

From  the  wings  comes  the  tuning  of  the  violins. 
A  flute  ripples  up  and  down  in  a  care-free  manner 
as  though  the  villain  Kazrac  were  already  dead  and 
virtue  had  come  into  its  own.  The  orchestra  emerges 
from  below.  Their  calmness  is  but  a  pretense. 
Having  looked  on  such  sights  as  lie  behind  the 
curtain,  having  trod  such  ways,  they  should  be 
bubbling  with  excitement.  Yet  observe  the  bass 
viol!  How  sodden  is  his  eye!  How  sunken  is  his 
gaze!  With  what  dull  routine  he  draws  his  bow,  as 
though  he  knew  naught  but  sleepy  tunes!  If  there 
be  any  genie  in  the  place,  as  the  program  says,  let 
him  first  stir  this  sad  fellow  from  his  melancholy! 

We  consult  our  programs.  The  first  scene  is  the 
magician's  cave  where  he  plans  his  evil  schemes.  The 
second  is  the  Chinese  city  where  he  pretends  to  be 
Aladdin's  uncle.  And  for  myself,  did  a  friendly  old 
gentleman  offer  me  lollypops  and  all-day-suckers — 


THE  FRIENDLY  GENII 


81 


for  so  did  the  glittering  baubles  present  themselves 
across  the  footlights — like  Aladdin  I,  too,  would  not 
have  squinted  too  closely  on  his  claim.  Gladly  I 
would  have  gone  off  with  him  on  an  all-day  picnic 
toward  the  Chinese  mountains. 

We  see  a  lonely  pass  in  the  hills,  the  cave  of  jewels 
(splendid  to  the  eye  of  childhood)  where  the  slave 
of  the  lamp  first  appears,  and  finally  the  throne-room 
with  Aladdin  seated  safely  beside  his  princess. 

Who  knows  how  to  dip  a  pen  within  the 
twilight?    Who  shall  trace  the  figures  of 
the  mist?    The  play  is  done.    We  come 
out  in  silence.    Our  candy  is  but  a  rem 
nant.     Darkness  has  fallen.     The  pave 
ments  are  wet  and  shining,  so 
that  the  night  might  see  his 
face,    if    by    chance    the    old 
fellow  looked  our  way. 

All  about 
there  are  per 
sons  hurrying 
home  with 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


dinner-pails,  who,  by  their  dull  eyes,  seem  never  to 
have  heard  what  wonders  follow  on  the  rubbing  of 
a  lamp. 

But  how  the  fires  leaped  up — how  ambition  beat 
within  us — how  our  attic  theatre  was  wrought  to 
perfection — how  the  play  came  off  and  wracked  the 
neighborhood  of  its  pins — with  what  grace  I  myself 
acted  Aladdin — these  things  must  be  written  by  a 
vain  and  braggart  pen. 


Site  in  the 


HEN  IT  happens  that  a  man 
has  risen  to  be  a  member  of 
Parliament,  the  Secretary  of 
the  British  Navy  and  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  Royal  Society,  when 
he  has  become  the  adviser  of  the 
King  and  is  moreover  the  one 
really  bright  spot  in  that  King's 
reign,  it  is  amazing  that  consider 
ably  more  than  one  hundred  years 
after  his  death,  when  the  navy 
that  he  nurtured  dominates  the  seven  seas,  that  he 
himself  on  a  sudden  should  be  known,  not  for  his 
larger  accomplishments,  but  as  a  kind  of  tavern  crony 
and  pot-companion.  When  he  should  be  standing 
with  fame  secure  in  a  solemn  though  dusty  niche  in 
the  Temple  of  Time,  it  is  amazing  that  he  should  be 
remembered  chiefly  for  certain  quarrels  with  his  wife 
and  as  a  frequenter  of  plays  and  summer  gardens. 

Yet  this  is  the  fate  of  Samuel  Pepys.  Before  the 
return  of  the  Stuarts  he  held  a  poor  clerkship  in  the 
Navy  Office  and  cut  his  quill  obscurely  at  the  common 
desk.  At  the  Restoration,  partly  by  the  boost  of 
influence,  but  chiefly  by  his  substantial  merit,  he 
mounted  to  several  successively  higher  posts.  The 
Prince  of  Wales  became  his  friend  and  patron  and 


84 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

when  he  became  Lord  High  Admiral  he  took  Pepys 
with  him  in  his  advancement.  Thus  in  1684,  Pepys 
became  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  When  later  the 
Prince  of  Wales  became  King  James  II,  Pepys, 
although  his  office  remained  the  same,  came  to  quite 
a  pinnacle  of  administrative  power.  He  was  shrewd 
and  capable  in  the  conduct  of  his  position  and  brought 
method  to  the  Navy  Office.  He  was  a  prime  factor 
in  the  first  development  of  the  British  Navy.  Later 
victories  that  were  to  sweep  the  seas  may  be  traced 
in  part  to  him.  Nelson  rides  upon  his  shoulders. 
These  achievements  should  have  made  his  fame 
secure.  But  on  a  sudden  he  gained  for  posterity  a 
less  dignified  although  a  more  interesting  and 
enduring  renown. 

In  life,  Samuel  Pepys  walked  gravely  in  majestical 
robe  with  full-bottomed  wig  and  with  ceremonial  lace 
flapping  at  his  wrists.  Every  step,  if  his  portrait  is 
to  be  believed,  was  a  bit  of  pageantry.  Such  was  his 
fame,  that  if  his  sword  but  clacked  a  warning  on  the 
pavement,  it  must  have  brought  the  apprentices  to  the 
windows.  Tradesmen  laid  down  their  wares  to  get 
a  look  at  him.  Fat  men  puffed  and  strained  to  gain 
the  advantage  of  a  sill.  Fashionable  ladies  peeped 
from  brocaded  curtains  and  ogled  for  his  regard.  Or 
if  he  went  by  chair,  the  carriers  held  their  noses  up 
as  though  offended  by  the  common  air.  When  he 
spoke  before  the  Commons,  the  galleries  were  hushed. 
He  gave  his  days  to  the  signing  of  stiff  parchments- 
Admiralty  Orders  or  what  not.  He  checked  the  King 


MR.  PEPYS  SITS  IN  THE  PIT 


himself  at  the  council  table.  In  short,  he  was  not 
only  a  great  personage,  but  also  he  was  quite  well 
aware  of  the  fact  and  held  himself  accordingly. 

But  now  many  years  have  passed,  and  Time,  that 
has  so  long  been  at  bowls  with  reputations,  has 
acquired  a  moderate  skill  in  knocking  them  down. 
Let  us  see  how  it  fares  with  Pepys  !  Some  men  who 
have  been  roguish  in  their  lives  have  been  remembered 
by  their  higher  accomplishments.  A  string  of  sonnets 
or  a  novel  or  two,  if  it  catches  the  fancy,  has  wiped 
out  a  tap-room  record.  The  winning  of  a  battle  has 
obliterated  a  meanly  spent  youth.  It  is  true  that  for 
a  while  an  old  housewife  who  once  lived  on  the  hero's 
street  will  shake  a  dubious  finger  on  his  early  pranks. 
Stolen  apples  or  cigarettes  behind  the  barn  cram  her 
recollection.  But  even  a  village  reputation  fades. 
In  time  the  sonnets  and  glorious  battle  have  the  upper 
place.  But  things  went  the  other  way  with  Pepys. 
Rather,  his  fate  is  like  that  of  Zeus,  who  —  if  legend  is 
to  be  trusted  —  was  in  his  life  a  person  of  some  impor 
tance  whose  nod  stirred  society  on  Olympus,  but  who 
is  now  remembered  largely  for  his  flirtations  and  his 
braggart  conduct.  A  not  unlike  evil  has  fallen  on  the 
magnificent  Mr.  Pepys. 

This  fate  came  to  him  because  —  as  the  world 
knows  —  it  happened  that  for  a  period  of  ten  years 
in  comparative  youth,  he  wrote  an  interesting  and 
honest  diary.  He  began  this  diary  in  1659,  while  he 
was  still  a  poor  clerk  living  with  his  wife  in  a  garret, 
and  ended  it  in  1669,  when,  although  he  had  emerged 


86_ PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

from  obscurity,  his  greater  honors  had  not  yet  been 
set  on  him.  All  the  facts  of  his  life  during  this  period 
are  put  down,  whether  good  or  bad,  small  or  large, 
generous  or  mean.  He  writes  of  his  mornings  spent 
in  work  at  his  office,  of  his  consultations  with  higher 
officials.  There  is  much  running  to  and  fro  of 
business.  The  Dutch  war  bulks  to  a  proper  length. 
Parliament  sits  through  a  page  at  a  stretch.  Pepys 
goes  upon  the  streets  in  the  days  of  the  plague  and 
writes  the  horror  of  it — the  houses  marked  with  red 
crosses  and  with  prayers  scratched  beneath — the 
stench  and  the  carrying  of  dead  bodies.  He  sees  the 
great  fire  of  London  from  his  window  on  the  night 
it  starts;  afterwards  St.  Paul's  with  its  roofs  fallen. 
He  is  on  the  fleet  that  brings  Charles  home  from  his 
long  travels,  and  afterwards  when  Charles  is  crowned, 
he  records  the  processions  and  the  crowds.  But  also 
Pepys  quarrels  with  his  wife  and  writes  it  out  on 
paper.  He  debauches  a  servant  and  makes  a  note 
of  it.  He  describes  a  supper  at  an  ale-house,  and 
how  he  plays  on  the  flute.  He  sings  "Beauty  Re 
tire,"  a  song  of  his  own  making,  and  tells  how  his 
listeners  "cried  it  up." 

In  consequence  of  this,  Samuel  Pepys  is  now 
known  chiefly  for  his  attentions  to  the  pretty 
actresses  of  Drury  Lane,  for  kissing  Nell  Gwynne 
in  her  tiring-room,  for  his  suppers  with  "the  jade" 
Mrs.  Knipp,  for  his  love  of  a  tune  upon  the  fiddle, 
for  coming  home  from  Vauxhall  by  wherry  late  at 
night,  "singing  merrily"  down  the  river.  Or  perhaps 


MR.  PEPYS  SITS  IN  THE  PIT 87_ 

we  recall  him  best  for  burying  his  wine  and  Parmazan 
cheese  in  his  garden  at  the  time  of  the  Fire,  or  for 
standing  to  the  measure  of  Mr.  Pin  the  tailor  for  a 
"camlett  cloak  with  gold  buttons,"  or  for  sitting  for 
his  portrait  in  an  Indian  gown  which  he  "hired  to  be 
drawn  in."  Who  shall  say  that  this  is  not  the  very 
portrait  by  which  we  have  fancied  him  stalking  off 
to  Commons?  Could  the  apprentices  have  known  in 
what  a  borrowed  majesty  he  walked,  would  they  not 
have  tossed  their  caps  in  mirth  and  pointed  their 
dusky  fingers  at  him? 

Or  we  remember  that  he  once  lived  in  a  garret,  and 
that  his  wife,  "poor  wretch,"  was  used  to  make  the 
fire  while  Samuel  lay  abed,  and  that  she  washed  his 
"foul  clothes" — that  by  degrees  he  came  to  be 
wealthy  and  rode  in  his  own  yellow  coach — that  his 
wife  went  abroad  in  society  "in  a  flowered  tabby 
gown" — that  Pepys  forsook  his  habits  of  poverty  and 
exchanged  his  twelve-penny  seat  in  the  theatre  gallery 
for  a  place  in  the  pit — and  that  on  a  rare  occasion 
(doubtless  when  he  was  alone  and  there  was  but  one 
seat  to  buy)  he  arose  to  the  extravagance  of  a  four- 
shilling  box. 

Consequently,  despite  the  weightier  parts  of  the 
diary,  we  know  Pepys  chiefly  in  his  hours  of  ease. 
Sittings  and  consultations  are  so  dry.  If  only  the 
world  would  run  itself  decently  and  in  silence !  Even 
a  meeting  of  the  Committee  for  Tangier — when  the 
Prince  of  Wales  was  present  and  such  smaller  fry  as 
Chancellors — is  dull  and  is  matter  for  a  skipping  eye. 


88_ PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

If  a  session  of  Parliament  bulks  to  a  fat  paragraph 
and  it  happens  that  there  is  a  bit  of  deviltry  just 
below  at  the  bottom  of  the  page — maybe  no  more 
than  a  clinking  of  glasses  (or  perhaps  Nell  Gwynne's 
name  pops  in  sight) — bless  us  how  the  eye  will  hurry 
to  turn  the  leaf  on  the  chance  of  roguery  to  come! 
Who  would  read  through  a  long  discourse  on 
Admiralty  business,  if  it  be  known  before  that  Pepys 
is  engaged  with  the  pretty  Mrs.  Knipp  for  a  trip  to 
Bartholomew  Fair  to  view  the  dancing  horse,  and  that 
the  start  is  to  be  made  on  the  turning  of  the  page? 
Or  a  piece  of  scandal  about  Lady  Castlemaine,  how 
her  nose  fell  out  of  joint  when  Mrs.  Stuart  came  to 
court — such  things  tease  one  from  the  sterner 
business. 

And  for  these  reasons,  we  have  been  inclined  to 
underestimate  the  importance  of  Pepys'  diary. 
Francis  Jeffrey,  who  wrote  long  ago  about  Pepys, 
evidently  thought  that  he  was  an  idle  and  unprofitable 
fellow  and  that  the  diary  was  too  much  given  to  mean 
and  petty  things.  But  in  reality  the  diary  is  an 
historical  mine.  Even  when  Pepys  plays  upon  the 
surface,  he  throws  out  facts  that  can  be  had  nowhere 
else.  No  one  would  venture  to  write  of  Restoration 
life  without  digging  through  his  pages.  Pepys  wrote 
in  a  confused  shorthand,  maybe  against  the  eye  of  his 
wife,  from  whom  he  had  reason  to  conceal  his  offenses. 
The  papers  lay  undeciphered  until  1825,  when  a 
partial  publication  was  made.  There  were  additions 
by  subsequent  editors  until  now  it  appears  that  the 


MR.  PEPYS  SITS  IN  THE  PIT 89_ 

Wheatley  text  of  1893-1899  is  final.  But  ever  since 
1825,  the  diary  has  been  judged  to  be  of  high  impor 
tance  in  the  understanding  of  the  first  decade  of  the 
Restoration. 

If  some  of  the  weightier  parts  are  somewhat  dry, 
there  are  places  in  which  a  lighter  show  of  personality 
is  coincident  with  real  historical  data.  Foremost  are 
the  pages  where  Pepys  goes  to  the  theatre. 

More  than  Charles  II  was  restored  in  1660. 
Among  many  things  of  more  importance  than  this 
worthless  King,  the  theatre  was  restored.  Since  the 
close  of  Elizabethan  times  it  had  been  out  of  business. 
More  than  thirty  years  before,  Puritanism  had 
snuffed  out  its  candles  and  driven  its  fiddlers  to  the 
streets.  But  Puritanism,  in  its  turn,  fell  with  the 
return  of  the  Stuarts.  Pepys  is  a  chief  witness  as  to 
what  kind  of  theatre  it  was  that  was  set  up  in  London 
about  the  year  1660.  It  was  far  different  from  the 
Elizabethan  theatre.  It  came  in  from  the  Bankside 
and  the  fields  to  the  north  of  the  city  and  lodged  itself 
on  the  better  streets  and  squares.  It  no  longer  pat 
terned  itself  on  the  inn-yard,  but  was  roofed  against 
the  rain.  The  time  had  been  when  the  theatre  was 
cousin  to  the  bear-pit.  They  were  ranged  together  on 
the  Bankside  and  they  sweat  and  smelled  like  con 
genial  neighbors.  But  these  days  are  past.  Let 
Bartholomew  Fair  be  as  rowdy  as  it  pleases,  let 
acrobats  and  such  loose  fellows  keep  to  South wark, 
the  theatre  has  risen  in  the  world !  It  has  put  on  a  wig, 
as  it  were,  it  has  tied  a  ribbon  to  itself  and  has  become 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


fashionable.  And  although  it  has  taken  on  a  few 
extra  dissolute  habits,  they  are  of  the  genteelest  kind 
and  will  make  it  feel  at  home  in  the  upper  circles. 

But  also  the  theatre  introduced  movable  scenery. 
There  is  an  attempt  toward  elaboration  of  stage 
effect.  "To  the  King's  playhouse—  '  says  Pepys, 
"a  good  scene  of  a  town  on  fire."  Women  take  parts. 
An  avalanche  of  new  plays  descends  on  it.  Even  the 
old  plays  that  have  survived  are  garbled  to  suit  a 
change  of  taste. 

But  if  you  would  really  know  what  kind  of  theatre 
it  was  that  sprang  up  with  the  Stuarts  and  what  the 
audiences  looked  like  and  how  they  behaved,  you  must 
read  Pepys.  With  but  a  moderate  use  of  fancy,  you 
can  set  out  with  him  in  his  yellow  coach  for  the  King's 
house  in  Drury  Lane.  Perhaps  hunger  nips  you  at 
the  start.  If  so,  you  stop,  as  Pepys  pleasantly  puts 
it,  for  a  "barrel  of  oysters."  Then,  having  dusted 
yourself  of  crumbs,  you  take  the  road  again.  Pres 
ently  you  come  to  Drury  Lane.  Other  yellow  coaches 
are  before  you.  There  is  a  show  of  foppery  on  the 
curb  and  an  odor  of  smoking  links.  A  powdered 
beauty  minces  to  the  door.  Once  past  the  door 
keeper,  you  hear  the  cries  of  the  orange  women  going 
up  and  down  the  aisles.  There  is  a  shuffling  of 
apprentices  in  the  gallery.  A  dandy  who  lolls  in  a 
box  with  a  silken  leg  across  the  rail,  scrawls  a  message 
to  an  actress  and  sends  it  off  by  Orange  Moll. 
Presently  Castlemaine  enters  the  royal  box  with  the 
King.  There  is  a  craning  of  necks,  for  with  her  the 


MR.  PEPYS  SITS  IN  THE  PIT 


91 


King  openly  "do  discover  a  great  deal  of  familiarity." 
In  other  boxes  are  other  fine  ladies  wearing  vizards 
to  hold  their  modesty  if  the  comedy  is  free.  A  board 
breaks  in  the  ceiling  of  the  gallery  and  dust  falls  in 
the  men's  hair  and  the  ladies'  necks,  which,  writes 
Pepys,  "made  good  sport."  Or  again,  "A  gentle 
man  of  good  habit,  sitting  just  before  us,  eating  of 
some  fruit  in  the  midst  of  the  play,  did  drop  down  as 
dead ;  being  choked,  but  with  much  ado  Orange  Moll 
did  thrust  her  finger  down  his  throat  and  brought 
him  to  life  again."  Or  perhaps,  "I  sitting  behind  in 
a  dark  place,  a  lady  spit  backward  upon  me  by  a 
mistake,  not  seeing  me,  but  after  seeing  her  to 
be  a  very  pretty  lady,  I  was 
not  troubled  at  it  at  all." 

At   a   change   of 
scenes,     Mrs.     Knipp 
spies  Pepys  and  comes 
to  the  pit  door.      He 
goes   with  her  to   the 
tiring-room.     "To  the 
women's    shift,"    he 
writes,  "where  Nell 
was  dressing  herself, 
and  was  all  unready, 
and  is  very  pretty, 
prettier   than   I 
thought.  .  .  .  But  to 
see  how  Nell  cursed 
for    having    so    few 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


people  in  the  pit,  was  pretty."  —  "But  Lord!  their 
confidence  !  and  how  many  men  do  hover  about  them 
as  soon  as  they  come  off  the  stage,  and  how  confident 
they  are  in  their  talk!"  Or  he  is  whispered  a  bit  of 
gossip,  how  Castlemaine  is  much  in  love  with  Hart, 
an  actor  of  the  house.  Then  Pepys  goes  back  into  the 
pit  and  lays  out  a  sixpence  for  an  orange.  As  the 
play  nears  its  end,  footmen  crowd  forward  at  the 
doors.  The  epilogue  is  spoken.  The  fiddles  squeak 
their  last.  There  is  a  bawling  outside  for  coaches. 

"Would  it  fit  your  humor,"  asks  Mr.  Pepys,  when 
we  have  been  handed  to  our  seats,  "would  it  fit  your 
humor,  if  we  go  around  to  the  Rose  Tavern  for  some 
burnt  wine  and  a  breast  of  mutton  off  the  spit?  It's 
sure  that  some  brave  company  will  fall  in,  and  we 
can  have  a  tune.  We'll  not  heed  the  bellman.  We'll 
sit  late,  for  it  will  be  a  fine  light  moonshine  morning." 


IN  a  while  I  dream  that  I 
come  upon  a  person  who  is  reading 
a  book  that  I  have  written.  In  my 
pleasant  dreams  these  persons  do  not 
nod  sleepily  upon  my  pages,  and  sometimes  I  fall  in 
talk  with  them.  Although  they  do  not  know  who  I 
am,  they  praise  the  book  and  name  me  warmly  among 
my  betters.  In  such  circumstance  my  happy  night 
mare  mounts  until  I  ride  foremost  with  the  giants. 
If  I  could  think  that  this  disturbance  of  my  sleep  came 
from  my  diet  and  that  these  agreeable  persons  arose 
from  a  lobster  or  a  pie,  nightly  at  supper  I  would  ply 
my  fork  recklessly  among  the  platters. 

But  in  a  waking  state  these  meetings  never  come. 
If  an  article  of  mine  is  ever  read  at  all,  it  is  read  in 
secret  like  the  Bible.  Once,  indeed,  in  a  friend's 
house  I  saw  my  book  upon  the  table,  but  I  suspect 
that  it  had  been  dusted  and  laid  out  for  my  coming. 
I  request  my  hostess  that  next  time,  for  my  vanity, 
she  lay  the  book  face  down  upon  a  chair,  as  though 


94  PIPPINS  AND  CHEES1E 

the  grocer's  knock  intruded.  Or  perhaps  a  huckster's 
cart  broke  upon  her  enjoyment.  Let  it  be  thought 
that  a  rare  bargain — tender  asparagus  or  the  first 
strawberries  of  the  summer — tempted  her  off  my 
pages!  Or  maybe  there  was  red  rhubarb  in  the  cart 
and  the  jolly  farmer,  as  he  journeyed  up  the  street, 
pitched  it  to  a  pleasing  melody.  Dear  lady,  I  forgive 
you.  But  let  us  hope  no  laundryman  led  you  off! 
Such  discord  would  have  marred  my  book. 

I  saw  once  in  a  public  library,  as  I  went  along  the 
shelves,  a  volume  of  mine  which  gave  evidence  to 
have  been  really  read.  The  record  in  front  showed 
that  it  had  been  withdrawn  one  time  only.  The  card 
was  blank  below — but  once  certainly  it  had  been  read. 
I  hope  that  the  book  went  out  on  a  Saturday  noon 
when  the  spirits  rise  for  the  holiday  to  come,  and  that 
a  rainy  Sunday  followed,  so  that  my  single  reader 
was  kept  before  his  fire.  A  dull  patter  on  the 
window — if  one  sits  unbuttoned  on  the  hearth — gives 
a  zest  to  a  languid  chapter.  The  rattle  of  a  storm — 
if  only  the  room  be  snug — fixes  the  attention  fast. 
Therefore,  let  the  rain  descend  as  though  the  heavens 
rehearsed  for  a  flood!  Let  a  tempest  come  out  of 
the  west!  Let  the  chimney  roar  as  it  were  a  lion! 
And  if  there  must  be  a  clearing,  let  it  hold  off  until 
the  late  afternoon,  lest  it  sow  too  early  a  distaste  for 
indoors  and  reading!  There  is  scarcely  a  bookworm 
who  will  not  slip  his  glasses  off  his  nose,  if  the  clouds 
break  at  the  hour  of  sunset  when  the  earth  and  sky 
are  filled  with  a  green  and  golden  light. 


TO  AN  UNKNOWN  READER  95 

I  took  the  book  off  the  library  shelf  and  timidly 
glancing  across  my  shoulder  for  fear  that  some  one 
might  catch  me,  I  looked  along  the  pages.  There  was 
a  thumb  mark  in  a  margin,  and  presently  appeared 
a  kindly  stickiness  on  the  paper  as  though  an  orange 
had  squirted  on  it.  Surely  there  had  been  a  human 
being  hereabouts.  It  was  as  certain  as  when  Crusoe 
found  the  footprints  in  the  sand.  Ah,  I  thought,  this 
fellow  who  sits  in  the  firelight  has  caught  an  appetite. 
Perhaps  he  bit  a  hole  and  sucked  the  fruit,  and  the 
skin  has  burst  behind.  Or  I  wave  the  theory  and  now 
conceive  that  the  volume  was  read  at  breakfast.  If  so, 
it  is  my  comfort  that  in  those  dim  hours  it  stood 
propped  against  his  coffee  cup. 

But  the  trail  ended  with  the  turning  of  the  page. 
There  were,  indeed,  further  on,  pencil  checks  against 
one  of  the  paragraphs  as  if  here  the  book  had  raised 
a  faint  excitement,  but  I  could  not  tell  whether  they 
sprang  up  in  derision  or  in  approval.  Toward  the 
end  there  were  uncut  leaves,  as  though  even  my  single 
reader  had  failed  in  his  persistence. 

Being  swept  once  beyond  a  usual  caution,  I  la 
mented  to  my  friend  F of  the  neglect  in  which 

readers  held  me,  to  which  the  above  experience  in  a 
library  was  a  rare  exception.  F-  —  offered  me  such 
consolation  as  he  could,  deplored  the  general  taste  and 
the  decadence  of  the  times,  and  said  that  as  praise 
was  sweet  to  everyone,  he,  as  far  as  he  himself  was 
able,  offered  it  anonymously  to  those  who  merited  it. 
He  was  standing  recently  in  a  picture  gallery,  when 


96  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

a  long-haired  man  who  stood  before  one  of  the 
pictures  was  pointed  out  to  him  as  the  artist  who  had 
painted  it.  At  once  F-  -  saw  his  opportunity  to 
confer  a  pleasure,  but  as  there  is  a  touch  of  humor  in 
him,  he  first  played  off  a  jest.  Lounging  forward, 
he  dropped  his  head  to  one  side  as  artistic  folk  do 
when  they  look  at  color.  He  made  a  knot-hole  of 
his  fingers  and  squinted  through.  Next  he  retreated 
across  the  room  and  stood  with  his  legs  apart  in  the 
very  attitude  of  wisdom.  He  cast  a  stern  eye  upon 
the  picture  and  gravely  tapped  his  chin.  At  last  when 

the  artist  was  fretted  to  an  extremity,  F came 

forward  and  so  cordially  praised  the  picture  that  the 
artist,  being  now  warmed  and  comforted,  presently 
excused  himself  in  a  high  excitement  and  rushed 
away  to  start  another  picture  while  the  pleasant  spell 
was  on  him. 

Had  I  been  the  artist,  I  would  have  run  from  either 

F 's  praise  or  disapproval.    As  an  instance,  I  saw 

a  friend  on  a  late  occasion  coming  from  a  bookstore 
with  a  volume  of  suspicious  color  beneath  his  arm. 
I  had  been  avoiding  that  particular  bookstore  for  a 
week  because  my  book  lay  for  sale  on  a  forward  table. 
And  now  when  my  friend  appeared,  a  sudden  panic 
seized  me  and  I  plunged  into  the  first  doorway  to 
escape.  I  found  myself  facing  a  soda  fountain.  For 
a  moment,  in  my  blur,  I  could  not  account  for  the 
soda  fountain,  or  know  quite  how  it  had  come  into 
my  life.  Presently  an  interne — for  he  was  jacketted 
as  if  he  walked  a  hospital — asked  me  what  I'd  have. 


TO  AN  UNKNOWN  READER 


Still  somewhat  dazed,  in  my  discomposure,  having  no 
answer  ready,  my  startled  fancy  ran  among  the  signs 
and  labels  of  the  counter  until  I  recalled  that  a 
bearded  man  once,  unblushing  in  my  presence,  had 
ordered  a  banana  flip.  I  got  the  fellow's  ear  and 
named  it  softly.  Whereupon  he  placed  a  dead- 
looking  banana  across  a  mound  of  ice-cream,  poured 
on  colored  juices  as  though  to  mark  the  fatal  wound 
and  offered  it  to  me.  I  ate  a  few  bites  of  the  sickish 
mixture  until  the  streets  were  safe. 

I  do  not  know  to  what  I  can  attribute  my  timidity. 
Possibly  it  arises  from  the  fact  that  until  recently  my 
writing  met  with  uniform  rejection  and  failure.  For 
years  I  wrote  secretly  in  order  that  few  persons  might 
know  how  miserably  I  failed.  I  answered  upon  a 
question  that  I  had  given  up  the  practice,  that  I  now 
had  no  time  for  it,  that  I  scribbled  now  and  then  but 
always  burned  it.  All  that  while  I  gave  my  rare 
leisure  and  my  stolen  afternoons  —  the  hours  that 
other  men  give  to  golf  and  sleep  and  sitting  together  — 
these  hours  I  gave  to  writing.  On  a  holiday  I  was  at 
it  early.  On  Saturday  when  other  folks  were  abroad, 
I  sat  at  my  desk.  It  was  my  grief  that  I  was  so  poor 
a  borrower  of  the  night  that  I  blinked  stupidly  on  my 
papers  if  I  sat  beyond  the  usual  hour.  Writing  was 
my  obsession.  I  need  no  pity  for  my  failures,  for 
although  I  tossed  my  cap  upon  a  rare  acceptance, 
my  deeper  joy  was  in  the  writing.  That  joy  repeated 
failures  could  not  blunt. 

There  are  paragraphs  that  now  lie  yellow  in  my 


98  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

desk  with  their  former  meaning  faded,  that  still  recall 
as  I  think  of  them  the  first  exaltation  when  I  wrote 
them — feverishly  in  a  hot  emotion.  In  those  days 
I  thought  that  I  had  caught  the  sunlight  on  my  pen, 
and  the  wind  and  the  moon  and  the  spinning  earth. 
I  thought  that  the  valleys  and  the  mountains  arose 
from  the  mist  obedient  to  me.  If  I  splashed  my  pen, 
in  my  warm  regard  it  was  the  roar  and  fury  of  the 
sea.  It  was  really  no  more  than  my  youth  crying 
out.  And,  alas,  my  thoughts  and  my  feelings  escaped 
me  when  I  tried  to  put  them  down  on  paper,  although 
I  did  not  know  it  then.  Perhaps  they  were  too 
vagrant  to  be  held.  And  yet  these  paragraphs  that 
might  be  mournful  records  of  failure,  fill  me  with  no 
more  than  a  tender  recollection  for  the  boy  who  wrote 
them.  The  worn  phrases  now  beg  their  way  with 
broken  steps.  Like  shrill  and  piping  minstrels  they 
whine  and  crack  a  melody  that  I  still  remember  in 
its  freshness. 

But  perhaps,  reader,  we  are  brothers  in  these 
regards.  Perhaps  you,  too,  have  faded  papers.  Or 
possibly,  even  on  a  recent  date,  you  sighed  your  soul 
into  an  essay  or  a  sonnet,  and  you  now  have  manu 
script  which  you  would  like  to  sell.  Do  not  mistake 
me !  I  am  not  an  editor,  nor  am  I  an  agent  for  these 
wares.  Rather  I  speak  as  a  friend  who,  having  many 
such  hidden  sorrows,  offers  you  a  word  of  comfort. 
To  a  desponding  Hamlet  I  exclaim,  "  'Tis  common, 
my  Lord."  I  have  so  many  friends  that  have  had  an 
unproductive  fling  toward  letters,  that  I  think  the 


TO  AN  UNKNOWN  READER 


99 


malady  is  general.  So  many  books  are  published  and 
flourish  a  little  while  in  their  bright  wrappers,  but 
yours  and  theirs  and  mine  waste  away  in  a  single 
precious  copy. 

I  am  convinced  that  a  close  inspection  of  all  desks — 
a  federal  matter  as  though  Capital  were  under  fire- 
would  betray  thousands  of  abandoned  novels.  There 
may  be  a  few  stern  desks  that  are  so  cluttered  with 
price-sheets  and  stock-lists  that  they  cannot  offer 
harborage  to  a  love  tale.  Standing  desks  in  par 
ticular,  such  as  bookkeepers  affect,  are  not  always 
chinked  with  these  softer  plots.  And  rarely  there  is 
a  desk  so  smothered  in  learning — reeking  so  of 
scholarship — as  not  to  admit  a  lighter  nook  for  the 
tucking  of  a  sea  yarn.  Even  so,  it  was  whispered  to 
me  lately  that  Professor  B — — ,  whose  word  shakes 
the  continent,  holds  in  a  lower  drawer  no  fewer  than 
three  unpublished  historical  novels,  each  set  up  with 


100  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

a  full  quota  of  smugglers  and  red  bandits.  One  of 
these  stories  deals  scandalously  with  the  abduction 
of  an  heiress,  but  this  must  be  held  in  confidence. 
The  professor  is  a  stoic  before  his  class,  but  there's 
blood  in  the  fellow. 

There  is,  therefore,  little  use  in  your  own  denial. 
You  will  recall  that  once,  when  taken  to  a  ruined 
castle,  you  brooded  on  the  dungeons  until  a  plot 
popped  into  your  head.  You  crammed  it  with  quaint 
phrasing  from  the  chroniclers.  You  stuffed  it  with 
soldiers'  oaths.  "What  ho!  landlord,"  you  wrote 
gayly  at  midnight,  "a  foaming  cup,  good  sir.  God 
pity  the  poor  sailors  that  take  the  sea  this  night!" 
And  on  you  pelted  with  your  plot  to  such  conflicts 
and  hair-breadth  escapes  as  lay  in  your  contrivance. 

These  things  you  have  committed.  Good  sir,  we 
are  of  a  common  piece.  Let  us  salute  as  brothers! 
And  therefore,  as  to  a  comrade,  I  bid  you  continue  in 
your  ways.  And  that  you  may  not  lack  matter  for 
your  pen,  I  warmly  urge  you,  when  by  shrewdest 
computation  you  have  exhausted  the  plots  of  adven 
ture  and  have  worn  your  villains  thin,  that  you 
proceed  in  quieter  vein.  I  urge  you  to  an  April 
mood,  for  the  winds  of  Spring  are  up  and  daffodils 
nod  across  the  garden.  There  is  black  earth  in  the 
Spring  and  green  hilltops,  and  there  is  also  the 
breath  of  flowers  along  the  fences  and  the  sound  of 
water  for  your  pen  to  prattle  of. 


"A  Plague  of  SUGowar&s 

. 


AVING     WRITTEN 

lately  against  the 
dog,  several  ac 
quaintances  have  asked  me 
to  turn  upon  the  cat,  and 
they  have  been  good  enough  to  furnish  me  with 
instances  of  her  faithlessness.  Also,  a  lady  with 
whom  I  recently  sat  at  dinner,  inquired  of  me  on  the 
passing  of  the  fish,  whether  I  had  ever  properly 
considered  the  cow,  which  she  esteemed  a  most  mis 
chievous  animal.  One  of  them  had  mooed  at  her  as 
she  crossed  a  pasture  and  she  had  hastily  climbed  a 
fence.  I  get  a  good  many  suggestions  first  and  last. 
I  was  once  taken  to  a  Turkish  bath  for  no  other 
reason — as  I  was  afterwards  told — than  that  it  might 
supply  me  with  a  topic.  Odd  books  have  been  put  in 
my  way.  A  basket  of  school  readers  was  once  lodged 
with  me,  with  a  request  that  I  direct  my  attention  to 
the  absurd  selection  of  the  poems.  I  have  been  urged 
to  go  against  car  conductors  and  customs  men.  On 
one  occasion  I  received  a  paper  of  tombstone  inscrip 
tions,  with  a  note  of  direction  how  others  might  be 
found  in  a  neighboring  churchyard  if  I  were  curious. 
A  lady  in  whose  company  I  camped  last  summer  has 


108  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

asked  me  to  give  a  chapter  to  it.  We  were  abroad 
upon  a  lake  in  the  full  moon — we  were  lost  upon  a 
mountain — twice  a  canoe  upset — there  were  the 
ti£#tl  jests,  a  bout  cooking.  These  things  might  have 
filled  a, few  pages  agreeably,  yet  so  far  they  have 
given  me  only  a  paragraph. 

But  I  am  not  disposed  toward  any  of  these  sub 
jects,  least  of  all  the  cat,  upon  which  I  look — despite 
the  coldness  of  her  nature — as  a  harmless  and  com 
forting  appendage  of  the  hearth-rug.  I  would  no 
more  prey  upon  her  morals  than  I  would  the  morals 
of  the  andirons.  I  choose,  rather,  to  slip  to  another 
angle  of  the  question  and  say  a  few  words  about 
cowards,  among  whom  I  have  already  confessed  that 
I  number  myself. 

In  this  year  of  battles,  when  physical  courage  sits 
so  high,  the  reader — if  he  is  swept  off  in  the  general 
opinion — will  expect  under  such  a  title  something 
caustic.  He  will  think  that  I  am  about  to  loose 
against  all  cowards  a  plague  of  frogs  and  locusts  as 
if  old  Egypt  had  come  again.  But  cowardice  is  its 
own  punishment.  It  needs  no  frog  to  nip  it.  Even 
the  sharp-toothed  locust — for  in  the  days  that  bor 
dered  so  close  upon  the  mastodon,  the  locust  could 
hardly  have  fallen  to  the  tender  greenling  we  know 
today — even  the  locust  that  once  spoiled  the  Egyp 
tians  could  not  now  add  to  the  grief  of  a  coward. 

And  yet — really  I  hesitate.  I  blush.  My  attack 
will  be  too  intimate;  for  I  have  confessed  that  I  am 
not  the  very  button  on  the  cap  of  bravery.  I  have 


A  PLAGUE  OF  ALL  COWARDS  103 

indeed  stiffened  myself  to  ride  a  horse,  a  mightier 
feat  than  driving  him  because  of  the  tallness  of  the 
monster  and  his  uneasy  movement,  as  though  his  legs 
were  not  well  socketed  and  might  fall  out  on  a  change 
of  gaits.  I  have  ridden  on  a  camel  in  a  side-show,  but 
have  found  my  only  comfort  in  his  hump.  I  have 
stroked  the  elephant.  In  a  solemn  hour  of  night  I 
have  gone  downstairs  to  face  a  burglar.  But  I  do 
not  run  singing  to  these  dangers.  While  your  really 
brave  fellow  is  climbing  a  dizzy  staircase  to  the 
moon — I  write  in  figure — I  would  shake  with  fear 
upon  a  lower  platform. 

Perhaps  you  recall  Mr.  Tipp  of  the  Elia  essays. 
"Tipp,"  says  his  pleasant  biographer,  "never  mounted 
the  box  of  a  stage-coach  in  his  life ;  or  leaned  against 
the  rails  of  a  balcony ;  or  walked  upon  the  ridge  of  a 
parapet ;  or  looked  down  a  precipice ;  or  let  off  a  gun." 
I  cannot  follow  Tipp,  it  may  be,  to  his  extreme 
tremors — my  hair  will  not  rise  to  so  close  a  likeness 
of  the  fretful  porcupine — yet  in  a  measure  we  are  in 
agreement.  We  are,  as  it  were,  cousins,  with  the 
mark  of  our  common  family  strong  on  both  of  us. 

There  are  persons  who,  when  in  your  company  on 
a  country  walk,  will  steal  apples,  not  with  a  decent 
caution  from  a  tree  along  the  fence,  but  far  afield. 
If  there  are  grapes,  they  will  not  wait  for  a  turn  of 
the  road,  but  will  pluck  them  in  the  open.  Or  maybe 
in  your  wandering  you  come  on  a  half -built  house. 
You  climb  in  through  a  window  to  look  about.  Here 
the  stairs  will  go.  The  ice-box  will  be  set  against 


104 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

this  wall.  But  if  your  companion  is  one  of  valor's 
minions,  he  will  not  be  satisfied  with  this  safe  and 
agreeable  research — this  mild  speculation  on  bath 
rooms — this  innocent  placing  of  a  stove.  He  must 
go  aloft.  He  has  seen  a  ladder  and  yearns  to  climb 
it.  The  footing  on  the  second  story  is  bad  enough. 
If  you  fall  between  the  joists,  you  will  clatter  to  the 
basement.  It  is  hard  to  realize  that  such  an  open 
breezy  place  will  ever  be  cosy  and  warm  with  fires, 
and  that  sleepy  folk  will  here  lie  snugly  a-bed  on 
frosty  mornings.  But  still  the  brazen  fellow  is  not 
content.  A  ladder  leads  horribly  to  the  roof.  For 
myself  I  will  climb  until  the  tip  of  my  nose  juts  out 
upon  the  world — until  it  sprouts  forth  to  the  air  from 
the  topmost  timbers :  But  I  will  go  no  farther.  But 
if  your  companion  sees  a  scaffold  around  a  chimney, 
he  must  perch  on  it.  For  him,  a  dizzy  plank  is  a 
pleasant  belvedere  from  which  to  view  the  world. 

The  bravery  of  this  kind  of  person  is  not  confined 
to  these  few  matters.  If  you  happen  to  go  driving 
with  him,  he  will — if  the  horse  is  of  the  kind  that 
distends  his  nostrils — on  a  sudden  toss  you  the  reins 
and  leave  you  to  guard  him  while  he  dispatches  an 
errand.  If  it  were  a  motor  car  there  would  be  a  brake 
to  hold  it.  If  it  were  a  boat,  you  might  throw  out  an 
anchor.  A  butcher's  cart  would  have  a  metal  drag. 
But  here  you  sit  defenseless — tied  to  the  whim  of  a 
horse — greased  for  a  runaway.  The  beast  Dobbin 
turns  his  head  and  holds  you  with  his  hard  eye.  There 
is  a  convulsive  movement  along  his  back,  a  preface, 


A  PLAGUE  OF  ALL  COWARDS  105 

it  may  be,  to  a  sudden  seizure.  A  real  friend  would 
have  loosed  the  straps  that  run  along  the  horse's 
flanks.  Then,  if  any  deviltry  take  him,  he  might  go 
off  alone  and  have  it  out. 

I  have  in  mind  a  livery  stable  in  Kalamazoo. 
Myself  and  another  man  of  equal  equestrianism  were 
sent  once  to  bring  out  a  thing  called  a  surrey  and  a 
pair  of  horses.  Do  you  happen  to  be  acquainted  with 
Blat's  Horse  Food?  If  your  way  lies  among  the 
smaller  towns,  you  must  know  its  merits.  They  are 
proclaimed  along  the  fences  and  up  the  telegraph 
poles.  Drinking-troughs  speak  its  virtues.  Horses 
thrive  on  Blat's  Food.  They  neigh  for  it.  A  flashing 
lithograph  is  set  by  way  of  testament  wherever  traffic 
turns  or  lingers.  Do  you  not  recall  the  picture?  A 
great  red  horse  rears  himself  on  his  hind  legs.  His 
forward  hoofs  are  extended.  He  is  about  to  trample 
someone  under  foot.  His  nostrils  are  wide.  He  is 
unduly  excited.  It  cannot  be  food,  it  must  be  drink 
that  stirs  him.  He  is  a  fearful  spectacle. 

There  was  such  a  picture  on  the  wall  of  the  stable. 

"Have  you  any  horses,"  I  asked  nervously,  jerking 
my  thumb  toward  the  wall,  "any  horses  that  have 
been  fed  on  just  ordinary  food?  Some  that  are  a 
little  tired?" 

For  I  remembered  how  Mr.  Winkle  once  engaged 
horses  to  take  the  Pickwickians  out  to  Manor  Farm 
and  what  mishaps  befell  them  on  the  way. 

"  'He  don't  shy,  does  he?'  inquired  Mr.  Pickwick. 


106  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

'  'Shy,  sir? — He  wouldn't  shy  if  he  was  to  meet 
a  vagginload  of  monkeys  with  their  tails  burnt  off.' ' 

But  how  Mr.  Pickwick  dropped  his  whip,  how  Mr. 
Winkle  got  off  his  tall  horse  to  pick  it  up,  how  he 
tried  in  vain  to  remount  while  his  horse  went  round 
and  round,  how  they  were  all  spilt  out  upon  the 
bridge  and  how  finally  they  walked  to  Manor  Farm— 
these  things  are  known  to  everybody  with  an  inch  of 
reading. 

"  'How  far  is  it  to  Dingley  Dell?'  they  asked. 

'  'Better  er  seven  mile.' 

'  'Is  it  a  good  road?' 

"  'No,  t'ant.'  .  .  . 

"The  depressed  Pickwickians  turned  moodily 
away,  with  the  tall  quadruped,  for  which  they  all  felt 
the  most  unmitigated  disgust,  following  slowly  at 
their  heels." 

"Have  you  any  horses,"  I  repeated,  "that  have  not 
been  fed  on  Blat's  Food — horses  that  are,  so  to  speak, 
on  a  diet?" 

In  the  farthest  stalls,  hidden  from  the  sunlight  and 
the  invigorating  infection  of  the  day,  two  beasts  were 
found  with  sunken  chests  and  hollow  eyes,  who  took 
us  safely  to  our  destination  on  their  hands  and  knees. 

As  you  may  suspect,  I  do  not  enjoy  riding.  There 
is,  it  is  true,  one  saddle  horse  in  North  Carolina  that 
fears  me.  If  time  still  spares  him,  that  horse  I  could 
ride  with  content.  But  I  would  rather  trust  myself 
on  the  top  of  a  wobbly  step-ladder  than  up  the  sides 
of  most  horses.  I  am  not  quite  of  a  mind,  however, 


A  PLAGUE  OF  ALL  COWARDS 107 

with  Samuel  Richardson  who  owned  a  hobby-horse 
and  rode  on  his  hearth-rug  in  the  intervals  of  writing 
"Pamela."  It  is  likely  that  when  he  had  rescued  her 
from  an  adventure  of  more  than  usual  danger — 
perhaps  her  villainous  master  has  been  concealed  in 
her  closet — perhaps  he  has  been  hiding  beneath  her 
bed — it  is  likely,  having  brought  her  safely  off,  the 
author  locked  her  in  the  buttery  against  a  fresh 
attack.  Then  he  felt,  good  man,  in  need  of  exercise. 
So  while  he  waits  for  tea  and  muffins,  he  leaps  upon 
his  rocking-horse  and  prances  off.  As  for  the  hobby 
horse  itself,  I  have  not  heard  whether  it  was  of  the 
usual  nursery  type,  or  whether  it  was  built  in  the 
likeness  of  the  leather  camels  of  a  German  steamship. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  these  confessions  of  my 
cowardice  are  for  your  ear  alone.  They  must  not 
get  abroad  to  smirch  me.  If  on  a  country  walk  I 
have  taken  to  my  heels,  you  must  not  twit  me  with 
poltroonery.  If  you  charge  me  with  such  faint 
heartedness  while  other  persons  are  present,  I'll  deny 
it  flat.  When  I  sit  in  the  company  of  ladies  at  dinner, 
I  dissemble  my  true  nature,  as  doublet  and  hose  ought 
to  show  itself  courageous  to  petticoat.  If  then,  you 
taunt  me,  for  want  of  a  better  escape,  I  shall  turn  it 
to  a  jest.  I  shall  engage  the  table  flippantly:  Hear 
how  preposterously  the  fellow  talks! — he  jests  to 
satisfy  a  grudge.  In  appearance  I  am  whole  as  the 
marble,  founded  as  a  rock. 

But  really  some  of  us  cowards  are  diverting 
persons.  The  lady  who  directed  me  against  the  cow 


108 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

is  a  most  delightful  woman  with  whom  I  hope  I  shall 
again  sit  at  dinner.  A  witty  lady  of  my  acquaintance 
shivers  when  a  cat  walks  in  the  room.  A  man  with 
whom  I  pass  the  time  pleasantly  and  profitably, 
although  he  will  not  admit  a  fear  of  ghosts,  still  will 
not  sleep  in  an  empty  house  because  of  possible 
noises.  I  would  rather  spend  a  Saturday  evening  in 
the  company  of  the  cowardly  Falstaff  than  of  the 
bold  Hotspur.  If  it  were  not  for  sack,  villainous 
sack,  and  a  few  spots  upon  his  front,  you  would  go 
far  to  find  a  better  companion  than  the  fat  old  Knight. 
Bob  Acres  was  not  much  for  valor  and  he  made  an 
ass  of  himself  when  he  went  to  fight  a  duel,  yet  one 
could  have  sat  agreeably  at  mutton  with  him. 

But  these  things  are  slight.  It  matters  little 
whether  or  not  one  can  mount  a  ladder  comfortably. 
Now  that  motors  have  come  in,  horses  stand  remotely 
in  our  lives.  Nor  is  it  of  great  moment  whether  or 
not  we  fear  to  be  out  of  fashion — whether  we  halt  in 
the  wearing  of  a  wrong-shaped  hat,  or  glance  fear 
fully  around  when  we  choose  from  a  line  of  forks. 
Superstitions  rest  mostly  on  the  surface  and  are  not 
deadly  in  themselves.  A  man  can  be  true  of  heart 
even  if  he  will  not  sit  thirteen  at  table.  But  there 
is  a  kind  of  fear  that  is  disastrous  to  them  that  have 
it.  It  is  the  fear  of  the  material  universe  in  all  its 
manifestations.  There  are  persons,  stout  both  of 
chest  and  limb,  who  fear  drafts  and  wet  feet.  A 
man  who  is  an  elephant  of  valor  and  who  has  been 
feeling  this  long  while  a  gentle  contempt  for  such  as 


A  PLAGUE  OF  ALL  COWARDS 


109 


myself,  will  cry  out  if  a  soft  breeze  strikes  against 
his  neck.  If  a  foot  slips  to  the  gutter  and  becomes 
wet,  he  will  dose  himself.  Achilles  did  not  more 
carefully  nurse  his  heel.  For  him  the  lofty  dome  of 
air  is  packed  with  malignant  germs.  The  round 
world  is  bottled  with  contagion.  A  strong  man 
who,  in  his  time,  might  have  slain  the  Sofi,  is  as 
fearful  of  his  health  as  though  the 
plague  were  up  the  street.  Calamities 
beset  him.  The  slightest  sniffling  in  his 
nose  is  the  trumpet  for 
a  deep  disorder.  Ex-  ..,,  / 
istence  is  but  a  mov 
ing  hazard.  Life  for 
him,  poor  fellow, 
is  but  a  room 
with  a  window  on 
the  night  and  a 
storm  beating  on 
the  casement. 
God  knows,  it  is 
better  to  grow 
giddy  on  a  lad 
der  than  to  think 
that  this  majestic 
earth  is  such  an 


universal 
lence. 


pesti- 


rities  of  the 

British  Reviewers 


OOK  REVIEWERS  nowa 
days  direct  their  attention,  for 
the  most  part,  to  the  worthy 
books  and  they  habitually  neg 
lect  those  that  seem  beneath  their  regard.  On  a  rare 
occasion  they  assail  an  unprofitable  book,  but  even 
this  is  often  but  a  bit  of  practice.  They  swish  a 
bludgeon  to  try  their  hand.  They  only  take  their 
anger,  as  it  were,  upon  an  outing,  lest  with  too  close 
housing  it  grow  pallid  and  shrink  in  girth.  Or  maybe 
they  indulge  themselves  in  humor.  Perhaps  they 
think  that  their  pages  grow  dull  and  that  ridicule  will 
restore  the  balance.  They  throw  it  in  like  a  drunken 
porter  to  relieve  a  solemn  scene.  I  fancy  that  editors 
of  this  baser  sort  keep  on  their  shelves  one  or  two 
volumes  for  their  readers'  sport  and  mirth.  I  read 
recently  a  review  of  an  historical  romance — a  last 
faltering  descendant  of  the  race — whose  author  in  an 
endeavor  to  restore  the  past,  had  made  too  free  a  use 
of  obsolete  words.  With  what  playfulness  was  he 
held  up  to  scorn !  Mary  come  up,  sweet  chuck !  How 
his  quaint  phrasing  was  turned  against  him!  What 
a  merry  fellow  it  is  who  writes,  how  sharp  and  caustic ! 
There's  pepper  on  his  mood. 

But  generally,  it  is  said,  book  reviews  are  too 
flattering.      Professor    Bliss    Perry,    being    of   this 


THE  EARLY  BRITISH  REVIEWERS         111 

opinion,  offered  some  time  ago  a  statement  that 
"Magazine  writing  about  current  books  is  for  the 
most  part  bland,  complaisant,  pulpy.  .  .  .  The  Peda 
gogue  no  longer  gets  a  chance  at  the  gifted  young 
rascal  who  needs,  first  and  foremost,  a  premonitory 
whipping;  the  youthful  genius  simply  stays  away 
from  school  and  carries  his  unwhipped  talents  into 
the  market  place."  At  a  somewhat  different  angle 
of  the  same  opinion,  Dr.  Crothers  suggests  in  an  essay 
that  instead  of  being  directed  to  the  best  books,  we 
need  to  be  warned  from  the  worst.  He  proposes  to 
set  up  a  list  of  the  Hundred  Worst  Books.  For  is 
it  not  better,  he  asks,  to  put  a  lighthouse  on  a  reef 
than  in  the  channel?  The  open  sea  does  not  need  a 
bell-buoy  to  sound  its  depth. 

On  these  hints  I  have  read  some  of  the  book 
criticisms  of  days  past  to  learn  whether  they  too  were 
pulpy — whether  our  present  silken  criticism  always 
wore  its  gloves  and  perfumed  itself,  or  whether  it  has 
fallen  to  this  smiling  senility  from  a  sterner  youth. 
Although  I  am  usually  a  rusty  student,  yet  by 
diligence  I  have  sought  to  mend  my  knowledge  that 
I  might  lay  it  out  before  you.  Lately,  therefore,  if 
you  had  come  within  our  Public  Library,  you  would 
have  found  me  in  one  of  these  attempts.  Here  I  went, 
scrimping  the  other  business  of  the  day  in  order  that 
I  might  be  at  my  studies  before  the  rush  set  in  up 
town.  Mine  was  the  alcove  farthest  from  the  door, 
where  are  the  mustier  volumes  that  fit  a  bookish 
student.  So  if  your  quest  was  the  lighter  books — 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


such  verse  and  novels  as  present  fame  attests  —  you 
did  not  find  me.  I  was  hooped  and  bowed  around 
the  corner.  I  am  no  real  scholar,  but  I  study  on  a 
spurt.  For  a  whole  week  together  I  may  read  old 
plays  until  their  jigging  style  infects  my  own.  I 
have  set  myself  against  the  lofty  histories,  although 
I  tire  upon  their  lower  slopes  and  have  not  yet 
persisted  to  their  upper  and  windier  ridges.  I  have, 
also,  a  pretty  knowledge  of  the  Queen  Anne  wits  and 
feel  that  I  must  have  dogged  and  spied  upon  them 
while  they  were  yet  alive.  But  in  general,  although 
I  am  curious  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  learning,  I  lag 
in  the  inner  windings.  However,  for  a  fortnight  I 
have  sat  piled  about  with  old  reviews,  whose  leather 
rots  and  smells,  in  order  that  I  might  study  the  fading 
criticisms  of  the  past. 

Until  rather  near  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
those  who  made  their  living  in  England  by  writing 
were  chiefly  publishers'  hacks,  fellows  of  the  Dunciad 
sucking  their  quills  in  garrets  and  selling  their  labor 
for  a  crust,  for  the  reading  public  was  too  small  to 
support  them.  Or  they  found  a  patron  and  gave  him 
a  sugared  sonnet  for  a  pittance,  or  strained  themselves 
to  the  length  of  an  Ode  for  a  berth  in  his  household. 
Or  frequently  they  supported  a  political  party  and 
received  a  place  in  the  Red  Tape  Office.  But  even 
in  politics,  on  account  of  the  smallness  of  the  reading 
public  and  the  politicians'  indifference  to  its  approval, 
their  services  were  of  slight  account.  Too  often  a 
political  office  was  granted  from  a  pocket  borough 


THE  EARLY  BRITISH  REVIEWERS         113 

in  which  a  restricted  electorate  could  be  bought  at  a 
trifling  expense.  To  gain  support  inside  the  House 
of  Commons  was  enough.  The  greater  public  outside 
could  be  ignored.  This  attitude  changed  with  the 
coming  of  the  French  Revolution.  Here  was  a  new 
force  unrealized  before — that  of  a  crowd  which,  being 
unrepresented  and  with  a  real  grievance,  could,  when 
it  liked,  take  a  club  and  go  after  what  it  wanted.  For 
the  first  time  in  many  years  in  England — such  were 
the  whiffs  of  liberty  across  the  Channel — the  power  of 
an  unrepresented  public  came  to  be  known.  It  was 
not  that  the  English  crowd  had  as  yet  taken  the  club 
in  its  hands,  but  there  were  new  thoughts  abroad  in 
the  world,  and  there  was  the  possibility  to  be  regarded. 
To  influence  this  larger  public,  therefore,  men  who 
could  write  came  little  by  little  into  a  larger  demand. 
And  as  writers  were  comparatively  scarce,  all  kinds — 
whether  they  wrote  poems  or  prose — were  pressed 
into  service.  It  is  significant,  too,  that  it  was  in  the 
decades  subjected  to  the  first  influence  of  the  French 
Revolution  that  the  English  daily  paper  took  its  start 
as  an  agent  to  influence  public  opinion. 

It  was  therefore  rather  more  than  one  hundred 
years  ago  that  writers  came  to  a  better  prosperity. 
They  came  out  of  their  garrets,  took  rooms  on  the 
second  floor,  polished  their  brasses  and  became 
Persons.  I  can  fancy  that  a  writer  after  spending 
a  morning  in  the  composition  of  a  political  article  on 
the  whisper  of  a  Cabinet  Minister,  wrote  a  sonnet 
after  lunch,  and  a  book  review  before  dinner.  Let 


114  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

us  see  in  what  mood  they  took  their  advancement! 
Let  us  examine  their  temper — but  in  book  reviewing 
only,  for  that  alone  concerns  us!  In  doing  this,  we 
have  the  advantage  of  knowing  the  final  estimate  of 
the  books  they  judged.  Like  the  witch,  we  have 
looked  into  the  seeds  of  time  and  we  know  "which 
grain  will  grow  and  which  will  not." 

In  1802,  when  the  Edinburgh  Review  (which  was 
the  first  of  its  line  to  acquire  distinction)  came  into 
being,  the  passion  of  the  times  found  voice  in  politics. 
Both  Whigs  and  Tories  had  been  alarmed  by  the 
excesses  of  the  French  Revolution;  both  feared  that 
England  was  drifting  the  way  of  France;  each  had 
a  remedy,  but  opposed  and  violently  maintained. 
The  Tories  put  the  blame  of  the  Revolution  on  the 
compromises  of  Louis  XVI,  and  accordingly  they 
were  hostile  to  any  political  change.  The  Whigs,  on 
the  other  hand,  saw  the  rottenness  of  England  as  a 
cause  that  would  incite  her  to  revolution  also,  and 
they  advocated  reform  while  yet  there  was  time.  The 
general  fear  of  a  revolution  gave  the  government  of 
England  to  the  Tories,  and  kept  them  in  power  for 
several  decades.  And  England  was  ripe  for  trouble. 
The  government  was  but  nominally  representative. 
No  Catholic,  Jew,  Dissenter  or  poor  man  had  a  vote 
or  could  hold  a  seat  in  Parliament.  Industrially  and 
economically  the  country  was  in  the  condition  of 
France  in  the  year  of  Arthur  Young's  journey.  The 
poverty  was  abject,  the  relief  futile  and  the  hatred 
of  the  poor  for  the  rich  was  inflammatory.  George 


THE  EARLY  BRITISH  REVIEWERS         115 

III,  slipping  into  feebleness  and  insanity,  yet  jealous 
of  his  unconstitutional  power,  was  a  vacillating 
despot,  quarrelling  with  his  Commons  and  his 
Ministers.  Lord  Eldon  as  Chancellor,  but  with  as 
nearly  the  control  of  a  Premier  as  the  King  would 
allow,  was  the  staunch  upholder  of  all  things  that 
have  since  been  disproved  and  discarded.  Bagehot 
said  of  him  that  "he  believed  in  everything  which  it 
is  impossible  to  believe  in."  France  and  Napoleon 
threatened  across  the  narrow  channel.  England  still 
growled  at  the  loss  of  her  American  colonies.  It  was 
as  yet  the  England  of  the  old  regime.  The  great 
reforms  were  to  come  thirty  years  later — the  Catholic 
Emancipation,  the  abolishment  of  slavery  in  the 
colonies,  the  suppression  of  the  pocket  boroughs,  the 
gross  bribery  of  elections,  the  cleaning  of  the  poor 
laws  and  the  courts  of  justice. 

It  was  in  this  dark  hour  of  English  history  that  the 
writers  polished  their  brasses  and  set  up  as  Persons. 
And  if  the  leading  articles  that  they  wrote  of  morn 
ings  stung  and  snapped  with  venom,  it  is  natural  that 
the  book  reviews  on  which  they  spent  their  afternoons 
had  also  some  vinegar  in  them,  especially  if  they 
concerned  books  written  by  those  of  the  opposition. 
And  other  writers,  even  if  they  had  no  political 
connection,  borrowed  their  manners  from  those  who 
had.  It  was  the  animosities  of  party  politics  that  set 
the  general  tone.  Billingsgate  that  had  grown  along 
the  wharves  of  the  lower  river,  was  found  to  be  of 
service  in  Parliament  and  gave  a  spice  and  sparkle 


116 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

even  to  a  book  review.  Presently  a  large  part  of 
literary  England  wore  the  tags  of  political  prefer 
ence.  Writers  were  often  as  clearly  distinguished  as 
were  the  ladies  in  the  earlier  day,  when  Addison  wrote 
his  paper  on  party  patches.  There  were  seats  of 
Moral  Philosophy  to  be  handed  out,  under-secretary- 
ships,  consular  appointments.  It  is  not  enough  to 
say  that  Francis  Jeffrey  was  a  reviewer,  he  was  as 
well  a  Whig  and  was  running  a  Review  that  was 
Whig  from  the  front  cover  to  the  back.  Leigh  Hunt 
was  not  merely  a  poet,  for  he  was  also  a  radical,  and 
therefore  in  the  opinions  of  Tories,  a  believer  in 
immorality  and  indecency.  No  matter  how  innocent 
a  title  might  appear,  it  was  held  in  suspicion,  on  the 
chance  that  it  assailed  the  Ministry  or  endangered 
the  purity  of  England.  William  Gifford  was  more 
than  merely  the  editor  of  the  Quarterly  Review,  for 
he  was  as  well  a  Tory  editor  whose  duty  it  was  to  pry 
into  Whiggish  roguery.  Lockhart  and  Wilson,  who 
wrote  in  Blackwood's,  were  Tories  tooth  and  nail, 
biting  and  scratching  for  party.  Nowadays,  litera 
ture,  having  found  the  public  to  be  its  most  profitable 
patron,  wTorks  hard  and  even  abjectly  for  its  favor. 
Although  there  are  defects  in  the  arrangement,  it 
must  be  confessed  that  the  divorce  of  literature  from 
politics  contributes  to  the  general  peace  of  the 
household. 

The  Edinburgh  Review  was  founded  in  1802,  the 
Quarterly  Review  in  1809,  Blackwood's  Magazine  in 
1817.  These  three  won  distinction  among  others  of 


THE  EARLY  BRITISH  REVIEWERS         117 

less  importance,  and  from  them  only  I  quote.  In 
1802,  when  Tory  rule  was  strongest  and  Lord  Eldon 
flourished,  there  was  living  in  Edinburgh  a  group 
of  young  men  who  were  for  the  most  part  briefless 
barristers.  Their  case  was  worse  because  they  were 
Whigs.  Few  cases  came  their  way  and  no  offices. 
These  young  men  were  Francis  Jeffrey,  Francis 
Horner,  Henry  Brougham,  and  there  was  also 
Sydney  Smith  who  had  just  come  to  Edinburgh  from 
an  English  country  parish.  The  eldest  was  thirty- 
one,  the  youngest  twenty-three.  Although  all  of 
them  had  brilliant  lives  before  them,  not  one  of  them 
had  made  as  yet  more  than  a  step  toward  his  accom 
plishment.  Sydney  Smith  had  been  but  lately  an 
obscure  curate,  buried  in  the  middle  of  Salisbury 
Plain,  away  from  all  contact  with  the  world.  Francis 
Jeffrey  had  been  a  hack  writer  in  London,  had  studied 
medicine,  had  sought  unsuccessfully  a  government 
position  in  India,  had  written  poor  sonnets,  and  was 
now  lounging  with  but  a  scanty  occupation  in  the 
halls  of  the  law  courts.  Francis  Horner  had  just 
come  to  the  Scottish  bar  straight  from  his  studies. 
Henry  Brougham,  who  in  days  to  come  was  to  be 
Lord  Chancellor  of  England  and  to  whose  skill  in 
debate  the  passing  of  the  Great  Reform  bill  of  1832 
is  partly  due,  is  also  just  admitted  to  the  practice 
of  the  law. 

The  founding  of  the  Review  was  casual.  These 
men  were  accustomed  to  meet  of  an  evening  for 
general  discussion  and  speculation.  It  happened  one 


118  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

night  as  they  sat  together — the  place  was  a  garret  if 
legend  is  to  be  believed — that  Sydney  Smith  lamented 
that  their  discussions  came  to  nothing,  for  they  were 
all  Whigs,  all  converted  to  the  cause ;  whereas  if  they 
could  only  bring  their  opinions  to  the  outside  public 
they  could  stir  opinion.  From  so  slight  a  root  the 
Review  sprouted.  Sydney  Smith  was  made  editor 
and  kept  the  position  until  after  the  appearance  of 
the  first  number,  when  Jeffrey  succeeded  him.  The 
Review  became  immediately  a  power,  appearing 
quarterly  and  striking  its  blows  anonymously  against 
a  sluggish  government,  lashing  the  Tory  writers,  and 
taking  its  part,  which  is  of  greater  consequence,  in 
the  promulgation  of  the  Whig  reforms  which  were  to 
ripen  in  thirty  years  and  convert  the  old  into  modern 
England.  In  the  destruction  of  outworn  things,  it 
was,  as  it  were,  a  magazine  of  Whig  explosives. 

The  Quarterly  Review  was  the  next  to  come  and 
it  was  Tory.  John  Murray,  the  London  publisher, 
had  been  the  English  distributor  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review.  In  1809,  two  considerations  moved  him  to 
found  in  London  a  review  to  rival  the  Scotch  periodi 
cal.  First  the  Tory  party  was  being  hard  hit  by  the 
Edinburgh  Review  and  there  was  need  of  defense 
and  retaliation.  In  the  second  place,  John  Murray 
saw  that  if  his  publishing  house  was  to  flourish,  it 
must  provide  this  new  form  of  literature  that  had 
become  so  popular.  For  the  very  shortness  of  the 
essays  and  articles,  in  which  extensive  conditions  were 
summarized  for  quick  digestion,  had  met  with  English 


THE  EARLY  BRITISH  REVIEWERS         119 

approval  as  well  as  Scotch.  People  had  become 
accustomed,  says  Bagehot,  of  taking  "their  literature 
in  morsels,  as  they  take  sandwiches  on  a  journey." 
Murray  appealed  to  George  Canning,  then  in  office, 
for  assistance  and  was  introduced  to  William  Gifford 
as  a  man  capable  of  the  undertaking,  who  would  also 
meet  the  favor  of  the  government  party.  The  rise 
of  the  Quarterly  Review  was  not  brilliant.  It  did 
not  fill  the  craving  for  novelty,  inasmuch  as  the 
Edinburgh  was  already  in  the  field.  Furthermore, 
there  is  not  the  opportunity  in  defense  for  as  con 
spicuous  gallantry  as  in  offensive  warfare. 

It  was  eight  years  before  another  enduring  review 
was  started.  William  Blackwood  of  Edinburgh  had 
grown  like  Murray  from  a  bookseller  to  a  publisher, 
and  he,  too,  looked  for  a  means  of  increasing  his 
prestige.  He  had  launched  a  review  the  year  pre 
viously,  in  1816,  but  it  had  foundered  when  it  was 
scarcely  off  the  ways.  His  second  attempt  he  was 
determined  must  be  successful.  His  new  editors  were 
John  G.  Lockhart  and  John  Wilson,  and  the  new 
policy,  although  nominally  Tory,  was  first  and  last 
the  magazine's  notoriety.  It  hawked  its  wares  into 
public  notice  by  sensational  articles  and  personal 
vilification.  Wilson  was  thirty-two  and  Lockhart 
twenty- three,  yet  they  were  as  mischievous  as  boys. 
In  their  pages  is  found  the  most  abominable  raving 
that  has  ever  passed  for  literary  criticism.  They  did 
not  need  any  party  hatred  to  fire  them.  William 
Blackwood  welcomed  any  abuse  that  took  his  maga- 


120  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

zine  out  of  "the  calm  of  respectable  mediocrity." 
Anything  that  stung  or  startled  was  welcome  to  a 
place  in  its  pages. 

So  Blackwood's  was  published  and  Edinburgh  city, 
we  may  be  sure,  set  up  a  roar  of  delight  and  anger. 
Never  before  had  one's  friends  been  so  assailed. 
Never  before  had  one's  enemies  been  so  grilled.  How 
pleasing  for  a  Tory  fireside  was  the  mud  bath  with 
which  it  defiled  Coleridge,  who  was — and  you  had 
always  known  it — "little  better  than  a  rogue."  One's 
Tory  dinner  was  the  more  toothsome  for  the  hot 
abuse  of  the  Chaldee  Manuscript.  What  stout  Tory, 
indeed,  would  doze  of  an  evening  on  such  a  sheet! 
There  followed  of  course  cases  of  libel.  The  editors 
even  found  it  safer,  after  the  publication  of  the  first 
number,  to  retire  for  a  time  to  the  country  until  the 
city  cooled. 

I  choose  now  to  turn  to  the  pages  of  these  three 
reviews  and  set  out  before  you  samples  of  their 
criticisms,  in  order  that  you  may  contrast  them  with 
our  own  literary  judgments.  I  warn  you  in  fairness 
that  I  have  been  disposed  to  choose  the  worst,  yet 
there  are  hundreds  of  other  criticisms  but  little  better. 
Of  the  three  reviews,  Blackwood's  was  the  least 
seriously  political  in  its  policy,  yet  its  critical  vilifica 
tions  are  the  worst.  The  Edinburgh  Review,  the 
most  able  of  the  three  and  the  most  in  earnest  in 
politics,  is  the  least  vituperative.  With  this  intro 
duction,  let  us  shake  the  pepperpot  and  lay  out  the 
strong  vinegar  of  our  feast! 


THE  EARLY  BRITISH  REVIEWERS 

In  the  judgment  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  Tom 
Moore,  who  had  just  published  his  "Odes  and 
Epistles"  but  had  not  yet  begun  his  Irish  melodies, 
is  a  man  who  "with  some  brilliancy  of  fancy,  and  some 
show  of  classical  erudition  .  .  .  may  boast,  if  the 
boast  can  please  him,  of  being  the  most  licentious  of 
modern  versifiers,  and  the  most  poetical  of  those  who, 
in  our  times,  have  devoted  their  talents  to  the  propa 
gation  of  immorality.  We  regard  his  book,  indeed, 
as  a  public  nuisance.  .  .  .  He  sits  down  to  ransact 
the  impure  places  of  his  memory  for  inflammatory 
images  and  expressions,  and  commits  them  labo 
riously  in  writing,  for  the  purpose  of  insinuating 
pollution  into  the  minds  of  unknown  and  unsuspecting 
readers." 

Francis  Jeffrey  wrote  this,  and  Moore  challenged 
him  to  fight.  The  police  interfered,  and  as  Jeffrey 
put  it,  "the  affair  ended  amicably.  We  have  since 
breakfasted  together  very  lovingly.  He  has  expressed 
penitence  for  what  he  has  written  and  declared  that 
he  will  never  again  apply  any  little  talents  he  may 
possess  to  such  purpose:  and  I  have  said  that  I  shall 
be  happy  to  praise  him  whenever  I  find  that  he  has 
abjured  these  objectionable  topics."  It  was  Sydney 
Smith  who  said  of  Jeffrey  he  would  "damn  the  solar 
system — bad  light — planets  too  distant — pestered 
with  comets.  Feeble  contrivance — could  make  a 
better  with  great  ease." 

Jeffrey  reviewed  Wordsworth  and  found  in  the 
"Lyrical  Ballads"  "vulgarity,  affectation  and  silli- 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


ness."  He  is  alarmed,  moreover,  lest  his  "childish 
ness,  conceit  and  affectation"  spread  to  other  authors. 
He  proposes  a  poem  to  be  called  "Elegiac  Stanzas 
to  a  Sucking  Pig,"  and  of  "Alice  Fell"  he  writes  that 
"if  the  publishing  of  such  trash  as  this  be  not  felt  as 
an  insult  on  the  public  taste,  we  are  afraid  it  cannot 
be  insulted."  When  the  "White  Doe  of  Rylstone" 
was  published  —  no  prime  favorite,  I  confess,  of  my 
own  —  Jeffrey  wrote  that  it  had  the  merit  of  being 
the  very  worst  poem  he  ever  saw  imprinted  in  a 
quarto  volume.  "It  seems  to  us,"  he  wrote,  "to 
consist  of  a  happy  union  of  all  the  faults,  without  any 
of  the  beauties,  which  belong  to  his  school  of  poetry. 
It  is  just  such  a  work,  in  short,  as  some  wicked  enemy 
of  that  school  might  be  supposed  to  have  devised,  on 
purpose  to  make  it  ridiculous." 

Lord  Byron,  on  the  publication  of  an  early 
volume,  is  counselled  "that  he  do  forthwith  abandon 
poetry  .  .  .  the  mere  rhyming  of  the  final  syllable, 
even  when  accompanied  by  the  presence  of  a  certain 
number  of  feet  ...  is  not  the  whole  art  of  poetry. 
We  would  entreat  him  to  believe,"  continued  the 
reviewer,  "that  a  certain  portion  of  liveliness,  some 
what  of  fancy,  is  necessary  to  constitute  a  poem;  and 
that  a  poem  in  the  present  day,  to  be  read,  must 
contain  at  least  one  thought.  ..."  It  was  this 
attack  that  brought  forth  Byron's  "English  Bards 
and  Scotch  Reviewers." 

As  long  as  Jeffrey  hoped  to  enlist  Southey  to  write 
for  the  Edinburgh  Review,  he  treated  him  with  some 


THE  EARLY  BRITISH  REVIEWERS         12S 

favor.  But  Southey  took  up  with  the  Quarterly. 
"The  Laureate,"  says  the  Edinburgh  presently,  "has 
now  been  out  of  song  for  a  long  time:  But  we  had 
comforted  ourselves  with  the  supposition  that  he  was 
only  growing  fat  and  lazy.  .  .  .  The  strain,  however, 
of  this  publication,  and  indeed  of  some  that  went 
before  it,  makes  us  apprehensive  that  a  worse  thing 
has  befallen  him  .  .  .  that  the  worthy  inditer  of  epics 
is  falling  gently  into  dotage." 

Now  for  the  Quarterly  Review,  if  by  chance  it  can 
show  an  equal  spleen! 

There  lived  in  the  early  days  of  the  nineteenth 
century  a  woman  by  the  name  of  Lady  Morgan,  who 
was  the  author  of  several  novels  and  books  of  travel. 
Although  her  record  in  intelligence  and  morals  is 
good,  John  Croker,  who  regularly  reviewed  her 
books,  accuses  her  works  of  licentiousness,  profligacy, 
irreverence,  blasphemy,  libertinism,  disloyalty  and 
atheism.  There  are  twenty-six  pages  of  this  in  one 
review  only,  and  any  paragraph  would  be  worth  the 
quoting  for  its  ferocity.  After  this  attack  it  was 
Macaulay  who  said  he  hated  Croker  like  "cold  boiled 
veal." 

The  Quarterly  reviewed  Keats'  "Endymion,"  al 
though  the  writer  naively  states  at  the  outset  that  he 
has  not  read  the  poem.  "Not  that  we  have  been 
wanting  in  our  duty,"  he  writes,  "far  from  it — 
indeed,  we  have  made  efforts  almost  as  superhuman 
as  the  story  itself  appears  to  be,  to  get  through  it; 
but  with  the  fullest  stretch  of  our  perseverance  we 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


are  forced  to  confess  that  we  have  not  been  able  to 
struggle  beyond  the  first  of  the  four  books.  .  .  ." 
Finally  he  questions  whether  Keats  is  the  author's 
name,  for  he  doubts  "that  any  man  in  his  senses  would 
put  his  real  name  to  such  a  rhapsody." 

Leigh  Hunt's  "Rimini"  the  Quarterly  finds  to  be 
an  "ungrammatical,  unauthorized,  chaotic  jargon, 
such  as  we  believe  was  never  before  spoken,  much  less 
written.  .  .  .  We  never,"  concludes  the  reviewer, 
"in  so  few  lines  saw  so  many  clear  marks  of  the 
vulgar  impatience  of  a  low  man,  conscious  and 
ashamed  of  his  wretched  vanity,  and  labouring,  with 
coarse  flippancy,  to  scramble  over  the  bounds  of 
birth  and  education,  and  fidget  himself  into  the  stout 
heartedness  of  being  familiar  with  a  Lord."  In  a 
later  review,  Hunt  is  a  propounder  of  atheism. 
"Henceforth,"  says  the  reviewer,  ".  .  .  he  may 
slander  a  few  more  eminent  characters,  he  may  go 
on  to  deride  venerable  and  holy  institutions,  he  may 
stir  up  more  discontent  and  sedition,  but  he  will  have 
no  peace  of  mind  within  ...  he  will  live  and  die 
unhonoured  in  his  own  generation,  and,  for  his  own 
sake  it  is  to  be  hoped,  moulder  unknown  in  those  which 
are  to  follow." 

Hazlitt  belongs  to  a  "class  of  men  by  whom  litera 
ture  is  more  than  at  any  period  disgraced."  His 
style  is  suited  for  washerwomen,  a  "class  of  females 
with  whom  ...  he  and  his  friend  Mr.  Hunt  particu 
larly  delight  to  associate." 

Shelley,    writes   the    Quarterly,    "is   one   of   that 


THE  EARLY  BRITISH  REVIEWERS 


industrious  knot  of  authors,  the  tendency  of  whose 
works  we  have  in  our  late  Numbers  exposed  to  the 
caution  of  our  readers  .  .  .  for  with  perfect  delib 
eration  and  the  steadiest  perseverance  he  perverts  all 
the  gifts  of  his  nature,  and  does  all  the  injury,  both 
public  and  private,  which  his  faculties  enable  him  to 
perpetrate."  His  "poetry  is  in  general  a  mere  jumble 
of  words  and  heterogeneous  ideas."  "The  Cloud"  is 
"simple  nonsense."  "Prometheus  Unbound"  is  a 
"great  storehouse  of  the  obscure  and  unintelligible." 
In  the  "Sensitive  Plant"  there  is  "no  meaning."  And 
for  Shelley  himself,  he  is  guilty  of  a  great  many 
terrible  things,  including  verbiage,  impiety,  immor 
ality  and  absurdity. 

Of  Blackwood's  Magazine  the  special  victims  were 
Keats  and  Hunt  and  Coleridge.  "Mr.  Coleridge," 
says  the  reviewer,  "...  seems  to  believe  that  every 
tongue  is  wagging  in  his  praise — that  every  ear  is 
open  to  imbibe  the  oracular  breathings 
of  his  inspiration  ...  no  sound  is  so 
sweet  to  him  as  that  of  ^^^^^JHH^^7^ 
his  own  voice  ...  he 

seems  to   consider  the  //x^^BfciS^S!™  SSEJJiSa 
mighty      universe 
itself  as  nothing 
better     than     a 
mirror     i  n 
which,  with 
a    grinning 
and    idiot 


PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 


self-complacency,  he  may  contemplate  the  physiog 
nomy  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge.  .  .  .  Yet  insig 
nificant  as  he  assuredly  is,  he  cannot  put  pen  to  paper 
without  a  feeling  that  millions  of  eyes  are  fixed  upon 
him.  .  .  ." 

Leigh  Hunt,  says  Blackwood,  "is  a  man  of  ex 
travagant  pretensions  .  .  .  exquisitely  bad  taste  and 
extremely  vulgar  modes  of  thinking."  His  "Rimini" 
"is  so  wretchedly  written  that  one  feels  disgust  at  its 
pretense,  affectation  and  gaudiness,  ignorance,  vul 
garity,  irreverence,  quackery,  glittering  and  rancid 
obscenities." 

Blackwood's  wrote  of  the  "calm,  settled,  imper 
turbable,  drivelling  idiocy  of  Endymion,"  and  else 
where  of  Keats'  "prurient  and  vulgar  lines,  evidently 
meant  for  some  young  lady  east  of  Temple  Bar.  .  .  . 
It  is  a  better  and  a  wiser  thing,"  it  commented,  "to 
be  a  starved  apothecary  than  a  starved  poet;  so  back 
to  the  shop,  Mr.  John,  back  to  'plasters,  pills  and 
ointment  boxes.'  '  And  even  when  Shelley  wrote 
his  "Adonais"  on  the  death  of  Keats,  Blackwood's 
met  it  with  a  contemptible  parody: 

"Weep  for  my  Tom  cat!  all  ye  Tabbies  weep!" 

Perhaps  I  have  quoted  enough.  This  is  the  parent 
age  of  our  silken  and  flattering  criticism. 

The  pages  of  these  old  reviews  rest  yellow  on  the 
shelves.  From  them  there  comes  a  smell  of  rotting 
leather,  as  though  the  infection  spreads.  The  hour 
grows  late.  Like  the  ghost  of  the  elder  Hamlet,  I 
detect  the  morning  to  be  near. 


PursuttofFire 


IEADER,  IF  by  chance  you 
have  the  habit   of  writ 
ing — whether  they  be  ser 
mons  to  hurl  across  your 
pews,     or     sonnets     in    the 
Spring — doubtless  you  have 
moments    when   you    sit    at 
your  desk  bare  of  thoughts. 
Mother  Hubbard's  cupboard 
when  she  went  to  seek  the 

bone  was  not  more  empty.  In  such  plight  you  chew 
your  pencil  as  though  it  were  stuff  to  feed  your  brain. 
Or  if  you  are  of  delicate  taste,  you  fall  upon  your 
fingers.  Or  in  the  hope  that  exercise  will  stir  your 
wits,  you  pace  up  and  down  the  room  and  press  your 
nose  upon  the  window  if  perhaps  the  grocer's  boy 
shall  rouse  you.  Some  persons  draw  pictures  on 
their  pads  or  put  pot-hooks  on  their  letters — for 
talent  varies — or  they  roughen  up  their  hair.  I  knew 
one  gifted  fellow  whose  shoes  presently  would  cramp 
him  until  he  kicked  them  off,  when  at  once  the  juices 
of  his  intellect  would  flow.  Genius,  I  am  told,  some 
times  locks  its  door  and,  if  unrestrained,  peels  its 
outer  wrappings.  Or,  in  your  poverty,  you  run 
through  the  pages  of  a  favorite  volume,  with  a  note- 


188 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

book  for  a  sly  theft  to  start  you  off.  In  what  dejec 
tion  you  have  fallen !  It  is  best  that  you  put  on  your 
hat  and  take  your  stupid  self  abroad. 

Or  maybe  you  think  that  your  creative  fire  will 
blaze,  if  instead  of  throwing  in  your  wet  raw  thoughts, 
you  feed  it  a  few  seasoned  bits.  You  open,  therefore, 
the  drawer  of  your  desk  where  you  keep  your  rejected 
and  broken  fragments — for  your  past  has  not  been 
prosperous — hopeful  against  experience  that  you  can 
recast  one  of  these  to  your  present  mood.  This  is 
mournful  business.  Certain  paragraphs  that  came 
from  you  hot  are  now  patched  and  shivery.  Their 
finer  meaning  has  run  out  between  the  lines  as  though 
these  spaces  were  sluices  for  the  proper  drainage  of 
the  page.  You  had  best  put  on  your  hat.  You  will 
get  no  comfort  from  these  stale  papers. 

One  evening  lately,  being  in  this  plight,  I  spread 
out  before  me  certain  odds  and  ends.  I  had  dug 
deeper  than  usual  in  the  drawer  and  had  brought  up 
a  yellow  stratum  of  a  considerable  age.  I  was  poring 
upon  these  papers  and  was  wondering  whether  I  could 
fit  them  to  a  newer  measure,  when  I  heard  a  slight 
noise  behind  me.  I  glanced  around  and  saw  that  a 
man  had  entered  the  room  and  was  now  seated  in  a 
chair  before  the  fire.  In  the  common  nature  of  things 
this  should  have  been  startling,  for  the  hour  was 
late — twelve  o'clock  had  struck  across  the  way — and 
I  had  thought  that  I  was  quite  alone.  But  there  was 
something  so  friendly  and  easy  in  his  attitude — he 
was  a  young  man,  little  more  than  a  lanky  boy — that 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  FIRE 129 

instead  of  being  frightened,  I  swung  calmly  around 
for  a  better  look.  He  sat  with  his  legs  stretched 
before  him  and  with  his  chin  resting  in  his  hand,  as 
though  in  thought.  By  the  light  that  fell  on  him  from 
the  fire,  I  saw  that  he  wore  a  brown  checked  suit  and 
that  he  was  clean  and  respectable  in  appearance. 
His  face  was  in  shadow. 

"Good  evening,"  I  said,  "y°u  startled  me." 

"I  am  sorry,"  he  replied.  "I  beg  your  pardon. 
I  was  going  by  and  I  saw  your  light.  I  wished  to 
make  your  acquaintance.  But  I  saw  at  once  that 
I  was  intruding,  so  I  sat  here.  You  were  quite 
absorbed.  Would  you  mind  if  I  mended  the  fire?" 

Without  waiting  for  an  answer,  he  took  the  poker 
and  dealt  the  logs  several  blows.  It  didn't  greatly 
help  the  flame,  but  he  poked  with  such  enjoyment  that 
I  smiled.  I  have  myself  rather  a  liking  for  stirring 
a  fire.  He  set  another  log  in  place.  Then  he  drew 
from  his  pocket  a  handful  of  dried  orange  peel.  "I 
love  to  see  it  burn,"  he  said.  "It  crackles  and  spits." 
He  ranged  the  peel  upon  the  log  where  the  flame 
would  get  it,  and  then  settled  himself  in  the  big  chair. 

"Perhaps  you  smoke?"  I  asked,  pushing  toward 
him  a  box  of  cigarettes. 

He  smiled.  "I  thought  that  you  would  know  my 
habits.  I  don't  smoke." 

"So  you  were  going  by  and  came  up  to  see  me?" 
I  asked. 

"Yes.  I  was  not  sure  that  I  would  know  you. 
You  are  a  little  older  than  I  thought,  a  little — 


130  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

stouter,  but  dear  me,  how  you  have  lost  your  hair! 
But  you  have  quite  forgotten  me." 

"My  dear  boy,"  I  said,  "y°u  have  the  advantage  of 
me.  Where  have  I  seen  you?  There  is  something 
familiar  about  you  and  I  am  sure  that  I  have  seen 
that  brown  suit  before." 

"We  have  never  really  known  each  other,"  the  boy 
replied.  "We  met  once,  but  only  for  an  instant. 
But  I  have  thought  of  you  since  that  meeting  a  great 
many  times.  I  lay  this  afternoon  on  a  hilltop  and 
wondered  what  you  would  be  like.  But  I  hoped  that 
sometimes  you  would  think  of  me.  Perhaps  you  have 
forgotten  that  I  used  to  collect  railway  maps  and 
time-tables." 

"Did  you?"  I  replied.  "So  did  I  when  I  was  a 
little  younger  than  you  are.  Perhaps  if  I  might  see 
your  face,  I  would  know  you." 

"It's  nothing  for  show,"  he  replied,  and  he  kept 
it  still  in  shadow.  "Would  you  mind,"  he  said  at 
length,  "if  I  ate  an  apple?"  He  took  one  from  his 
pocket  and  broke  it  in  his  hands.  "You  eat  half," 
he  said. 

I  accepted  the  part  he  offered  me.  "Perhaps  you 
would  like  a  knife  and  plate,"  I  said.  "I  can  find 
them  in  the  pantry." 

"Not  for  me,"  he  replied.  "I  prefer  to  eat  mine 
this  way."  He  took  an  enveloping  bite. 

"I  myself  care  nothing  for  plates,"  I  said.  We 
ate  in  silence.  Presently:  "You  have  my  habit,"  I 
said,  "of  eating  everything,  skin,  seeds  and  all." 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  FIRE 131 

"Everything  but  the  stem,"  he  replied. 

By  this  time  the  orange  peel  was  hissing  and 
exploding. 

"You  are  an  odd  boy,"  I  said.  "I  used  to  put 
orange  peel  away  to  dry  in  order  to  burn  it.  We 
seem  to  be  as  like  as  two  peas." 

"I  wonder,"  he  said,  "if  that  is  so."  He  turned  in 
his  chair  and  faced  me,  although  his  face  was  still 
in  shadow.  "Doubtless,  we  are  far  different  in  many 
things.  Do  you  swallow  grape  seeds?" 

"Hardly!"  I  cried.    "I  spit  them  out." 

"I  am  glad  of  that."  He  paused.  "It  was  a  breezy 
hilltop  where  I  lay.  I  thought  of  you  all  afternoon. 
You  are  famous,  of  course?" 

"Dear  me,  no!" 

"Oh,  I'm  so  sorry.  I  had  hoped  you  might  be.  I 
had  counted  on  it.  It  is  very  disappointing.  I  was 
thinking  about  that  as  I  lay  on  the  hill.  But  aren't 
you  just  on  the  point  of  doing  something  that  will 
make  you  famous?" 

"By  no  means." 

"Dear  me,  I  am  so  sorry.  Do  you  happen  to  be 
married?" 

"Yes." 

"And  would  you  mind  telling  me  her  name?" 

I  obliged  him. 

"I  don't  remember  to  have  heard  of  her.  I  didn't 
think  of  that  name  once  as  I  lay  upon  the  hill. 
Things  don't  turn  out  as  one  might  expect.  Now, 
I  would  have  thought — but  it's  no  matter." 


188  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

For  a  moment  or  so  he  was  lost  in  thought,  and 
then  he  spoke  again:  "You  were  writing  when  I 
came  into  the  room?" 

"Nothing  important." 

The  boy  ran  his  fingers  in  his  hair  and  threw  out 
his  arms  impatiently.  "That's  what  I  would  like  to 
do.  I  am  in  college,  and  I  try  for  one  of  the  papers. 
But  my  stuff  comes  back.  But  this  summer  in  the 
vacation,  I  am  working  in  an  office.  I  run  errands 
and  when  there  is  nothing  else  to  do,  I  study  a  big 
invoice  book,  so  as  to  get  the  names  of  things  that  are 
bought.  There  is  a  racket  of  drays  and  wagons 
outside  the  windows,  and  along  in  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon  I  get  tired  and  thick  in  my  head.  But  I 
write  Saturday  afternoons  and  Sunday  mornings." 

The  boy  stopped  and  fixed  his  eyes  on  me.  "I 
don't  suppose  that  you  happen  to  be  a  poet?" 

"Not  at  all,"  I  replied.  "But  perhaps  you  are  one. 
Tell  me  about  it!" 

The  boy  took  a  turn  at  the  fire  with  the  poker,  but 
it  was  chiefly  in  embarrassment.  Presently  he 
returned  to  his  chair.  He  stretched  his  long  arms 
upward  above  his  head. 

"No,  I'm  not,"  he  said.  "And  yet  sometimes  I 
think  that  I  have  a  kind  of  poetry  in  me.  Only  I 
can't  get  it  into  words.  I  lay  thinking  about  that, 
too,  on  the  hillside.  There  was  a  wind  above  my  head, 
and  I  thought  that  I  could  almost  put  words  to  the 
tune.  But  I  have  never  written  a  single  poem. 
Yet,  goodness  me,  what  thoughts  I  have!  But  they 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  FIRE 133 

aren't  real  thoughts — what  you  would  regularly  call 
thoughts.  Things  go  racing  and  tingling  in  my  head, 
but  I  can  never  get  them  down.  They  are  just 
feelings." 

As  he  spoke,  the  boy  gazed  intently  through  the 
chimney  bricks  out  into  another  world.  The  fire 
place  was  its  portal  and  he  seemed  to  wait  for  the 
fires  to  cool  before  entering  into  its  possession.  It 
was  several  moments  before  he  spoke  again. 

"I  don't  want  you  to  think  me  ridiculous,  but  so 
few  understand.  If  only  I  could  master  the  tools! 
Perhaps  my  thoughts  are  old,  but  they  come  to  me 
with  such  freshness  and  they  are  so  unexpected. 
Could  I  only  solve  the  frets  and  spaces  inside  me 
here,  I  could  play  what  tune  I  chose.  But  my  feel 
ings  are  cold  and  stale  before  I  can  get  them  into 
thoughts.  I  have  no  doubt,  however,  that  they  are 
just  as  real  as  those  other  feelings  that  in  time,  after 
much  scratching,  get  into  final  form  and  become 
poetry.  I  know  of  course  that  a  man's  reach  should 
exceed  his  grasp — it's  hackneyed  enough — but  just 
for  once  I  would  like  to  pull  down  something  when 
I  have  been  up  on  tiptoe  for  a  while. 

"Sometimes  I  get  an  impression  of  pity — a  glance 
up  a  dark  hallway — an  old  woman  with  a  shawl  upon 
her  head — a  white  face  at  a  window — a  blind  fiddler 
in  the  street — but  the  impression  is  gone  in  a  moment. 
Or  a  touch  of  beauty  gets  me.  It  may  be  nothing  but 
a  street  organ  in  the  spring.  Perhaps  you  like  street 
organs,  too?" 


184 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

"I  do,  indeed!"  I  cried.  "There  was  one  today 
outside  my  window  and  my  feet  kept  wiggling  to  it." 

The  boy  clapped  his  hands.  "I  knew  that  you 
would  be  like  that.  I  hoped  for  it  on  the  hill.  As 
for  me,  when  I  hear  one,  I'm  so  glad  that  I  could  cry 
out.  In  its  lilt  there  is  the  rhythm  of  life.  It  moves 
me  more  than  a  hillside  with  its  earliest  flowers.  Am 
I  absurd?  It  is  equal  to  the  pipe  of  birds,  to  shallow 
waters  and  the  sound  of  wind  to  stir  me  to  thoughts 
of  April.  Today  as  I  came  downtown,  I  saw  several 
merry  fellows  dancing  on  the  curb.  There  are  tunes, 
too,  upon  the  piano  that  send  me  off.  I  play  a  little 
myself.  I  see  you  have  a  piano.  Do  you  still  play?" 

"A  little,  rather  sadly,"  I  replied. 

"That's  too  bad,  but  perhaps  you  sing?" 

"Even  worse." 

"Dear  me,  that's  too  bad.  I  have  rather  a  voice 
myself.  Well,  as  I  was  saying,  when  I  hear  those 
tunes,  I  curl  up  with  the  smoke  and  blow  forth  from 
the  chimney.  If  I  walk  upon  the  street  when  the 
wind  is  up,  and  see  a  light  fleece  of  smoke  coming 
from  a  chimney  top,  I  think  that  down  below  some 
one  is  listening  to  music  that  he  likes,  and  that  his 
thoughts  ride  upon  the  night,  like  those  white 
streamers  of  smoke.  And  then  I  think  of  castles  and 
mountains  and  high  places  and  the  sounds  of  storm. 
Or  in  fancy  I  see  a  tower  that  tapers  to  the  moon  with 
a  silver  gleam  upon  it." 

The  strange  boy  lay  back  and  laughed.  "Musi 
cians  think  that  they  are  the  only  ones  that  can  hear 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  FIRE 135 

the  finer  sounds.  If  one  of  us  common  fellows  cocks 
his  ear,  they  think  that  only  the  coarser  thumps  get 
inside.  And  artists  think  that  they  alone  know  the 
glory  of  color.  I  was  thinking  of  that,  this  afternoon. 
And  yet  I  have  walked  under  the  blue  sky.  I  have 
seen  twilights  that  these  men  of  paint  would  botch 
on  canvas.  But  both  musicians  and  artists  have  a 
vision  that  is  greater  than  their  product.  The  soul 
of  a  man  can  hardly  be  recorded  in  black  and  white 
keys.  Nor  can  a  little  pigment  which  you  rub  upon 
your  thumb  be  the  measure  of  an  artist.  So  I  suppose 
that  is  the  way  also  with  poets.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  they  can  express  themselves  fully  in 
words  that  they  have  borrowed  from  the  kitchen. 
When  their  genius  flames  up,  it  is  only  the  lesser 
sparks  that  fall  upon  their  writing  pads.  It  consoles 
me  that  a  man  should  be  greater  than  his  achievement. 
I  who  have  done  so  little  would  otherwise  be  so 
forlorn." 

"It's  odd,"  I  said,  when  he  had  fallen  into  silence, 
"that  I  used  to  feel  exactly  as  you  do.  It  stirs  an  old 
recollection.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  I  once  wrote  a 
paper  on  the  subject." 

The  boy  smiled  dreamily.  "But  if  small  persons 
like  myself,"  he  began,  "can  have  such  frenzies,  how 
must  it  be  with  those  greater  persons  who  have 
amazed  the  world?  I  have  wondered  in  what  kind  of 
exaltation  Shakespeare  wrote  his  storm  in  'Lear.' 
There  must  have  been  a  first  conception  greater  even 
than  his  accomplishment.  Did  he  look  from  his 


136  PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

windows  at  a  winter  tempest  and  see  miserable  old 
men  and  women  running  hard  for  shelter?  Did  a 
flash  of  lightning  bare  his  soul  to  the  misery,  the 
betrayal  and  the  madness  of  the  world?  His  supreme 
moment  was  not  when  he  flung  the  completed  manu 
script  aside,  or  when  he  heard  the  actors  mouth  his 
lines,  but  in  the  flash  and  throb  of  creation — in  the 
moment  when  he  knew  that  he  had  the  power  in  him 
to  write  'Lear.'  What  we  read  is  the  cold  forging, 
wonderful  and  enduring,  but  not  to  be  compared  to 
the  producing  furnace." 

The  boy  had  spoken  so  fast  that  he  was  out  of 
breath. 

"Hold  a  bit !"  I  cried.  "What  you  have  said  sounds 
familiar.  Where  could  I  have  heard  it  before?" 

There  was  something  almost  like  a  sneer  on  the 
boy's  face.  "What  a  memory  you  have!  And 
perhaps  you  recall  this  brown  suit,  too.  It's  ugly 
enough  to  be  remembered.  Now  please  let  me  finish 
what  came  to  me  this  afternoon  on  the  hill!  Prome 
theus,"  he  continued,  "scaled  the  heavens  and  brought 
back  fire  to  mortals.  And  he,  as  the  story  goes, 
clutched  at  a  lightning  bolt  and  caught  but  a  spark. 
And  even  that,  glorious.  Mankind  properly  ac 
credits  him  with  a  marvellous  achievement.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  I  comfort  myself  although  I  have 
not  yet  written  a  single  line  of  verse." 

"My  dear  fellow,"  I  said,  "please  tell  me  where 
I  have  read  something  like  what  you  have  spoken?" 

The  boy's  answer  was  irrelevant*     "You  first  tell 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  FIRE 137 

me  what  you  did  with  a  brown  checked  suit  you  once 
owned." 

"I  never  owned  but  one  brown  suit,"  I  replied,  "and 
that  was  when  I  was  still  in  college.  I  think  that  I 
gave  it  away  before  it  was  worn  out." 

The  boy  once  more  clapped  his  hands.  "Oh,  I 
knew  it,  I  knew  it.  I'll  give  mine  tomorrow  to  the 
man  who  takes  our  ashes.  Now,  won't  you  please 
play  the  piano  for  me?" 

"Assuredly.    Choose  your  tune!" 

He  fumbled  a  bit  in  the  rack  and  passing  some 
rather  good  music,  he  held  up  a  torn  and  yellow  sheet. 
"This  is  what  I  want,"  he  said. 

I  had  not  played  it  for  many  years.  After  a  false 
start  or  so — for  it  was  villainously  set  in  four  sharps 
for  which  I  have  an  aversion — I  got  through  it.  On 
a  second  trial  I  did  better. 

The  boy  made  no  comment.  He  had  sunk  down  in 
his  chair  until  he  was  quite  out  of  sight.  "Well," 
I  said,  "what  next?" 

There  was  no  answer. 

I  arose  from  the  bench  and  glanced  in  his  direction. 
"Hello,"  I  cried,  "what  has  become  of  you?" 

The  chair  was  empty.  I  turned  on  all  the  lights. 
He  was  nowhere  in  sight.  I  shook  the  hangings.  I 
looked  under  my  desk,  for  perhaps  the  lad  was  hiding 
from  me  in  jest.  It  was  unlikely  that  he  could  have 
passed  me  to  gain  the  door,  but  I  listened  at  the  sill 
for  any  sound  upon  the  stairs.  The  hall  was  silent. 
I  called  without  response.  Somewhat  bewildered  I 


138 PIPPINS  AND  CHEESE 

came  back  to  the  hearth.  Only  a  few  minutes  before, 
as  it  seemed,  there  had  been  a  brisk  fire  with  a  row  of 
orange  peel  upon  the  upper  log.  Now  all  trace  of  the 
peel  was  gone  and  the  logs  had  fallen  to  a  white  ash. 

I  was  standing  perplexed,  when  I  observed  that  a 
little  pile  of  papers  lay  on  the  rug  just  off  the  end 
of  my  desk  as  by  a  careless  elbow.  At  least,  I 
thought,  this  impolite  fellow  has  forgotten  some  of 
his  possessions.  It  will  serve  him  right  if  it  is  poetry 
that  he  wrote  upon  the  hilltop. 

I  picked  up  the  papers.  They  were  yellow  and 
soiled,  and  writing  was  scrawled  upon  them.  At  the 
top  was  a  date — but  it  was  twenty  years  old.  I 
turned  to  the  last  sheet.  At  least  I  could  learn  the 
boy's  name.  To  my  amazement,  I  saw  at  the  bottom 
in  an  old  but  familiar  writing,  not  the  boy's  name,  but 
my  own. 

I  gazed  at  the  chimney  bricks  and  their  substance 
seemed  to  part  before  my  eyes.  I  looked  into  a 
world  beyond — a  fabric  of  moonlight  and  hilltop  and 
the  hot  fret  of  youth.  Perhaps  the  boy  had  only  been 
waiting  for  the  fire  upon  the  hearth  to  cool  to  enter 
this  other  world  of  his  restless  ambition  and  desire. 

Reader,  if  by  chance  you  have  the  habit  of  writ 
ing — let  us  confine  ourselves  now  to  sonnets  and  such 
airy  matter  as  rides  upon  the  night — doubtless,  you 
sit  sometimes  at  your  desk  bare  of  thoughts.  The 
juices  of  your  intellect  are  parched  and  dry.  In  such 
plight,  I  beg  you  not  to  fall  upon  your  fingers  or  to 
draw  pictures  on  your  sheet.  But  most  vehemently, 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  FIRE 


139 


and  with  such  emphasis  as  I  possess,  I  beg  you  not 
to  rummage  among  your  rejected  and  broken  frag 
ments  in  the  hope  of  recasting  a  withered  thought  to 
a  present  mood.  Rather,  before  you  sour  and  curdle, 
it  is  good  to  put  on  your  hat  and  take  your  stupid 
self  abroad. 


PRINTED    BY    E.     L.     HILDRETH     &    COMPANY 
BRATTLEBORO,   VERMONT,    U.    S.    A. 


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SEP    10  Ibo 


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1933. 


20  1935 


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